Pet Peeve

[rowyn]

Reporting on the US federal gov't's deficit always talks about the raw numbers: ($1.35 trillion!) Sometimes it mentions percentage of GDP (9.2%!)

It hardly ever talks about government income.

I get the feeling that government income generally goes up and down in a way that has very little to do with raising or lowering taxes, and a great deal to do with whether or not the economy is booming. But I don't really know, because 'how much money does the government receive?' isn't a question reporters are interested in answering. v.v Maybe I'll dig through the CBO's website and see if they can tell me.

Comments

Re: Revenue being a low % of GDP during a recession is a good thing

[rowyn]

It's okay, I could tell it was from you. :D Although having you signed in does make it easier to reply. Anyway, the "automatic stabilizers" is good to hear, since I was wondering how much of the drop was from "tax credits" getting treated as a decrease in revenue instead of the wealth-transfer spending that they really are. :/

Re: Revenue being a low % of GDP during a recession is a good thing

[telnar.livejournal.com]

Tax credits are a part of that number, but a smaller part than the inherent counter-cyclical pieces of the tax code. For an example, visualize how much the capital gains tax would collect in 2009.