Back in 2017, before the Trump tax cuts passed, the Congressional Budget Office projected that federal tax collections would total $4.011 trillion in Fiscal Year 2021, which just ended. The actual take: $4.047 trillion.
But, the CBO reported Friday, Uncle Sam still ran a $2.8 trillion budget FY 2021 deficit — thanks entirely to massive new government spending.
Again, revenues were $36 billion more than the CBO predicted before Trump’s tax cuts and the pandemic, too. The economy boomed that much in the wake of the cuts.
Total tax revenue for the year was 18.1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, the highest since at least 2001, disproving the claims that the Trump cuts permanently starved the government.
But the deficit still hit record levels, purely because of soaring spending. The outlays at the height of the pandemic make some sense, but Democrats have kept it up since winning control of Washington.
In March, they passed a $1.9 trillion “COVID relief” package with no way to pay for it (after whining Trump’s tax cuts would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit). And they still hope to add another $3 trillion or so before Christmas.
Yes, they say they’ll “pay for” it with various tax hikes — but the CBO’s record of prediction suggests their math won’t work out.
Democrats have already given us soaring inflation, historic supply-chain bottlenecks and worker shortages — and they’re striving to offer more of the same.
And they called Trump irresponsible.
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