“In January 2001, with the budget balanced and clear sailing ahead, the Congressional Budget Office forecast ever-larger annual surpluses indefinitely. The outlook was so rosy, the CBO said, that Washington would have enough money by the end of the decade to pay off everything it owed.
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The biggest culprit, by far, has been an erosion of tax revenue triggered largely by two recessions and multiple rounds of tax cuts. Together, the economy and the tax bills enacted under former president George W. Bush, and to a lesser extent by President Obama, wiped out $6.3 trillion in anticipated revenue. That’s nearly half of the $12.7 trillion swing from projected surpluses to real debt. Federal tax collections now stand at their lowest level as a percentage of the economy in 60 years.”
US Debt Clock — http://www.usdebtclock.org/
Welcome to http://www.presidentialdebt.org Home of unbiased data on the national debt!
United States public debt — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
The CBO estimated that letting current laws take effect beyond 2012 would significantly reduce future budget deficits. For example, the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 (extended by President Obama in 2010) are scheduled to expire at the end of 2012. Other deficit reducers per the CBO include: allowing the automatic spending cuts in the Budget Control Act of 2011 to take effect, allowing other tax cuts enacted in 2009 and 2010 by President Obama to expire in 2012, allowing the alternative minimum tax (AMT) to affect more taxpayers, and reducing Medicare reimbursements to doctors. These and other current laws, if allowed to take effect, reduce the deficit from an estimated 4.7% GDP in 2021 to 1.2% GDP. Total deficit reduction could be as high as $7.1 trillion over a decade if current law is enforced and not overridden. — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#The_.22fiscal_cliff.22
