Have you noticed that talk of the ‘looming federal deficit’ is conspicuously missing from the Democrat presidential nominees? The reason it is missing is because the federal deficit is quickly disappearing:
A month ago, the White House slashed its forecast for the 2007 deficit, saying it now expects to run a $205 billion deficit, down from its earlier $244 billion projection. The narrowing is being driven by better-than-anticipated tax receipts, particularly from corporations and wealthy individuals.
So far this year, individual income taxes are up 11% to $965 billion, with much of the increase stemming from taxes on investments and other sources of income more important to the wealthy. Receipts from these so-called nonwithheld taxes are up 13.5% so far this year. Corporations also helped to fill the coffers, with corporate tax receipts up 10.7% so far this year to $289 billion.
The federal deficit ” is shrinking toward about half the size that it has averaged since 1970, when analyzed as a percentage of gross domestic product”.
More can be found here and here. Link via Mark Perry’s blog here.
It must be tough to be Bill Richardson. The Democrats in the netroots hammer him for wanting to balance the budget, and the Republicans at the WSJ pretend he doesn’t exist.
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/07/why-i-dont-like.html
Odd…Bill Richardson is the only person on the Democrat side I think makes sense. Go figure.