Growls

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported in their final Monthly Budget Review for FY 2012 on Friday:

"The federal government’s fiscal year 2012 has come to a close, and CBO estimates that the federal budget deficit for the year was about $1.1 trillion, approximately $200 billion lower than the shortfall recorded in 2011. The 2012 deficit was equal to 7.0 percent of gross domestic product, CBO estimates, down from 8.7 percent in 2011, 9.0 percent in 2010, and 10.1 percent in 2009, but greater than in any other year since 1947. CBO’s deficit estimate is based on data from the Daily Treasury Statements; the Treasury Department will report the actual deficit for fiscal year 2012 later this month.

"The estimated deficit is $38 billion below what CBO projected in its August Budget and Economic Outlook because revenues were higher and outlays were lower than expected near the end of the fiscal year."

As CNS News and Breitbart's Big Government pointed out, that's the fourth straight year the federal deficit topped $1 trillion.

CBO's report also said that receipts "totaled $2.5 trillion, $148 billion more than those in the same period last year," which is up 6% over FY 2011. Receipts from the corporate income tax were up 34% while receipts from the individual income tax was up 3%. In addition, outlays were down by 1.6% for the year. For the two major programs, "Social Security payments increased by $42 billion (or 6 percent)" and "Medicare’s net spending was up by $15 billion (or 3 percent) after adjusting for timing shifts."

In their blog, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget summarized the year-to-year changes this way:

"In short, the moderate shrinkage of the deficit for 2012 comes from general economic expansion, deliberate deficit reduction, the expiration of temporary spending and tax measures, and the timing shift that pushed payments for October into the previous year."

Other resources: West Virginia's State Journal. And UPI said. The Chicago Tribune included a Reuters story that pointed out, "The deficit equaled about 7 percent of U.S. economic output, down from 8.7 percent in 2011, 9 percent in 2010 and 10.1 percent in 2009, but it was still greater than in any other year since 1947, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said." And the Wall Street Journal's report is here. Finally on Friday, the Heritage Foundation's blog, The Foundry, includes  the following chart comparing U.S. debt to several other countries:

UPDATE (10/7/12): Real Clear Politics posts the Associated Press report by Andrew Taylor about the CBO release of the final FY 2012 deficit numbers. The AP story included this:

"Obama inherited an economy in recession and a deficit in excess of $1 trillion. He promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, but deficits have instead remained at eye-popping levels, including a record $1.4 trillion deficit in 2009 and deficits of $1.3 trillion in each of the past two years.

"In Wednesday night's debate, Obama said he has a budget plan to shave $4 trillion from the deficit over the coming decade, but he counts $1 trillion from savings already accomplished in budget deals with Republicans last year and $848 billion from winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."