Debt, Spending and Taxes: All Time Highs? (3 Charts)

Business Insider has these three interesting graphs from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Personal taxes are a little below the forty-year average, but federal spending including transfers, is near all-time highs, mostly due to an explosion in transfer payments. There is some good news from the New York Times: The Incredible Shrinking Budget Deficit

... The number crunchers at Goldman Sachs have lowered their estimates of the deficit both this year and next, on the back of higher-than-expected revenues and lower-than-projected spending. Analysts started the year projecting that the deficit in the current fiscal year would be about $900 billion. Earlier this year, they lowered the estimate to $850 billion. Now they have lowered it again, to $775 billion, or about 4.8 percent of economic output.

“Spending in the fiscal year to date is lower than a year ago and the nominal growth rate is lower than it has been in decades,” the Goldman economists wrote in a note to clients. “Revenues have also exceeded expectations, with a 12 percent gain fiscal year to date. What is more notable is that the strength in revenues preceded the payroll tax hike at the start of the year, and the spending decline does not seem to reflect sequestration, which has just started to take effect.” To translate: the deficit could come in even smaller than currently anticipated because of spending cuts and higher tax rates. ...

Not everyone is as positive about the growth projections. See the NYT piece for more details

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The real point is, we can twist the numbers to say anything we want, and because people don't really pay attention, we believe what we WANT to believe. The truth is we are not very good stewards of what we are given. The spending increases happen every year because government is TOO big. There is waste because government it TOO big. It has become this big hungry monster that no one has been able (or had the will) to control since the Gingrich/Clinton days. Too bad for the future of our country.