CBO Estimates

Why they are useless BS, that can’t provide a guide to policy. Remember how the “tax cuts” were going to increase the deficit?

All told the government collected $515 billion and spent $297 billion, for a total monthly surplus of $218 billion. That swamped the previous monthly record of $190 billion, set in 2001.

CBO analysts were surprised by the surplus, which was some $40 billion more than they’d guessed at less than a month ago.

Analysts said they’ll have a better idea of what’s behind the surge as more information rolls in, but for now said it looks like individual taxpayers are paying more because they have higher incomes.

You don’t say.

6 thoughts on “CBO Estimates”

  1. Conservatives and libertarians have been saying this for years …decades even. The retort has always been that it’s a tax cut for the rich and that it will reduce tax revenue and the poor will be hurt even more.

    They are wrong and have ALWAYS been wrong.

    Worked when JFK did it but as that doesn’t fit the narrative….crickets.

    1. The common assumption when evaluating tax code changes seems to be a static economy, which history conclusively proves to be an incorrect assumption.

    2. Worked when Reagan did it too. It’s amazing how fast the U.S. economy can come back when an administration simply stops trying to beat it to death with a baseball bat. Trump is well on the way to looking like an economic genius via the simple expedient of just stopping the Obama-era nonsense. The general public seems to be noticing too, despite the pervasive cricket chirps from legacy media.

      A lot of progressive frequent commenters on other space forums have been predicting budget deficits to dwarf those chalked up by Obama. They’re also sure the Dems will take back both houses of Congress come Nov. 2017 wasn’t a good year for our prog friends. 2018 is shaping up to be even worse.

  2. I’m old enough to remember the excuse for “static scoring” that ignores the effects of a tax change. The “dynamic scoring” it replaced was even more counter-factual, going from absurd fiction to deliberate lies.

  3. It is/was impossible to predict specifically how the tax cuts would affect the economy or tax revenues. We also don’t know how the rest of the year will play out or out into the future.

    One of the problems I have seen in comments online is confusing deficits with tax revenue. Just because there is a deficit doesn’t mean there is a reduction in revenue. When tax revenues are increasing and there are still deficits, it means we have a spending problem. This report is good news but we still need to get spending under control if we want to deal with debt/deficits over the long term.

    It shouldn’t have been surprising that reducing the government’s burden in the form of taxation and regulation would lead to increased activity, especially since those burdens have become so onerous over the last decade.

    1. “It is/was impossible to predict specifically how the tax cuts would affect the economy or tax revenues.”

      No it wasn’t. Tax cuts always increase tax revenues. We should cut the tax rates to zero. Then we’d have infinite tax revenues.

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