On January 7, 200--two weeks before Barack Obama took the oath of office--the Congressional Budget Office forecast the federal budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 at $1.2 trillion. Now, the CBO is projecting the deficit will be only $642 billion for FY 2013, $200 billion less than the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper estimated as recently as February.

For policymakers in Washington, the implications couldn't be clearer. For starters, the counterproductive Beltway fixation on immediate debt reduction, which economists have warned is slowing U.S. economic growth and costing millions of jobs, should be jettisoned ASAP. And to be sure, the Republicans' next round of debt ceiling hostage-taking should be condemned as the economic sabotage it is.

The CBO explained why the U.S. fiscal picture is improving so dramatically:

If the current laws that govern federal taxes and spending do not change, the budget deficit will shrink this year to $642 billion, CBO estimates, the smallest shortfall since 2008. Relative to the size of the economy, the deficit this year--at 4.0 percent of gross domestic product (GDP)--will be less than half as large as the shortfall in 2009, which was 10.1 percent of GDP...

CBO's estimate of the deficit for this year is about $200 billion below the estimate that it produced in February 2013, mostly as a result of higher-than-expected revenues and an increase in payments to the Treasury by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. For the 2014-2023 period, CBO now projects a cumulative deficit that is $618 billion less than it projected in February. That reduction results mostly from lower projections of spending for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the public debt.

By 2015, the annual deficit is now projected to just 2.1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, well below the 40-year historical average of 3.1 percent. The gap is expected to grow to 3.5 percent by 2023, "because of the pressures of an aging population, rising health care costs, an expansion of federal subsidies for health insurance, and growing interest payments on federal debt."

The new CBO numbers are just the latest confirmation of House Speaker John Boehner's admission that "we have no immediate debt crisis." Coming on the heels of an analysis by the Hamilton Project estimating that austerity at the federal, state and local level has cost up to 2.2 million American jobs, the CBO report should help put to lie that more budget cutting is needed in Washington. As the New York Times explained just last week:

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The Obama administration on Friday lifted the covers on its compromise budget proposal for fiscal year 2014. While Obama's blueprint would slash the national debt by a projected $1.8 trillion over the next decade (bringing the total reductions since 2011 to $4.3 trillion) through painful changes to Social Security and Medicare, Republicans are predictably balking at Obama's call for $580 billion in new tax revenue. Despite the administration's up-front concessions on spending, GOP leaders including John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor continue to repeat their talking points that "the President got his tax hikes in January" and "the discussion about revenue is over."

But as a quick glance at U.S. budgets past and future shows, the discussion over tax revenue should be far from over. For starters, thanks to two wars, the new unfunded Medicare prescription drug program and the government responses to the 2008 financial meltdown, federal spending surged over the previous decade even as tax revenue as a percentage of the U.S. economy hit 60 year lows. And looking ahead, the U.S. Treasury will need to raise revenues higher than the historical average not just to fill the massive hole left by the Naughts, but to fund $2 trillion more in war-related spending, to address the aging of the U.S. population and to meet the public's demands for more, not less, spending across almost every area of government.

Here are 10 reasons why Uncle Sam needs more tax revenue. (Click a link to jump to the details for each.)

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Back in 2010, Ohio Rep. John Boehner defied recent history and basic math when he comically denied that the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 played any role in producing federal budget deficits ever since. Now in his refusal to countenance any new tax revenue to avoid the job-killing sequester, Speaker Boehner is peddling a new deception. Pretending to ignore inflation, population growth and the expansion of the American economy, Boehner is now claiming federal tax revenue is at a record high.

Speaking to Scott Pelley of CBS News earlier this week, Boehner said no tax increases could be part of any bipartisan plan to avoid the first $85 billion in cuts to discretionary spending beginning March 1. Why?

"The president got his tax hikes in January. The federal government will have more revenue this year than any year in our history. It's time to tackle spending. Period."

As he declared further talks on Thursday, Boehner once again declared, "The revenue issue is now closed." He added:

"How much more money do we want to steal from the American people to fund more government?"

Now, the $2.7 trillion in fiscal year 2013 revenue recently forecast by the Congressional Budget Office is, by a small margin, Uncle Sam's largest haul when measured in current dollars. But as a percentage of the total American economy (see chart above), federal tax revenues remain well below historical averages.

The handy CBO chart paints a pretty clear picture of Boehner's whitewashing. At less than 17 percent of U.S. GDP, federal revenue for FY 2013 is near historically lows. But that is an improvement over 2010, when the disastrous recession combined with the continuing drain from the Bush tax cuts slashed federal receipts to the 15 percent level not seen since the early 1950's. Meanwhile, the costs of two wars, emergency recovery measures including TARP and the stimulus, and counter-cyclical demand for food stamps, unemployment benefits and health care pushed Washington's spending to levels not seen since Ronald Reagan's first term. (It's worth noting that federal spending is almost flat since Barack Obama first took the oath of office, while the annual deficit has declined.) Contrary to Republican mythology that "tax cuts pay for themselves," it took five years for the Treasury to recover from the Bush tax cuts of 2001.

That last point is made clearer when taking inflation into account.

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House Speaker John Boehner told Fox News Sunday that it "doesn’t matter" where the money comes from in the deficit deal. No, it's perfectly okay to stiff the working class and the vulnerable elderly, as long as the Republicans can still play Santa to their corporate funders:

CHRIS WALLACE: You talked about the fact that the President won and you came out with a concession the day after the election and they point out that the president campaigned on raising tax rates, you know, and it was the big issue, between him and Romney, and, they say, just as he had to cave, after your victory, in the 2010 midterms, now, it is your turn to cave on tax rates.

BOEHNER: Listen, what is this difference where the money comes from? We put $800 billion worth of revenue, which is what he is asking for, out of eliminating the top two tax rates. But, here’s the problem, Chris, when you go and increase tax rates, you make it more difficult for our economy to grow, after that income, the small business income, it is going to get taxed at a higher rate and as a result we’re gonna see slower economic growth, we can’t cut our way out of this problem, nor can we grow our way out of the problem, we have to have a balanced approach and what the President wants to do will slow or economy at a time when he says he wants the economy to grow and create jobs.

I wish, instead of these Very Serious Sunday Shows(c), we could have a game show called "Bullsh*t!" Politicians would talk, and viewers would have a B.S. meter at home that would allow them to register their votes. I think our chattering classes would be surprised at how little credibility they have with the country at large.

Among the myriad Republican myths about taxes, the most pernicious and demonstrably false - that "tax cuts pay for themselves" - is the mostly deeply held by the GOP faithful. As President George W. Bush famously (and erroneously) put it, "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase." Now, a survey of leading economists conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is just the latest shovelful of evidence to bury Arthur Laffer's zombie lie.

Earlier this year, as Congressional Republicans learned the hard way three weeks ago from CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, another Chicago Booth poll revealed that "80 percent of economic experts agreed that, because of the stimulus, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise." (As Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee, ""Only 4 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed. That is a distinct minority.")

Now, the U of C is back with a new two-part survey on the Laffer Curve. In the first question, 35 percent agreed and another 35 percent were unsure that "a cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would lead to higher GDP within five years than without the tax cut." (That response is unsurprising, given that one definition states that GDP equals consumption plus investment plus government plus net exports minus taxes.) But far more interesting are the results on the question that gets to the heart of Arthur Laffer's supply-side snake oil which has been Republican orthodoxy ever since Jude Wanniski sketched Laffer's curve on a cocktail napkin. In a nutshell, not a single one of the economists surveyed agreed that "a cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would raise taxable income enough so that the annual total tax revenue would be higher within five years than without the tax cut."

In his comments, David Autor of MIT pointed out, "Not aware of any evidence in recent history where tax cuts actually raise revenue. Sorry, Laffer." Former Obama administration economist and current University of Chicago professor Austan Goolsbee put it this way:

Moon landing was real. Evolution exists. Tax cuts lose revenue. The research has shown this a thousand times. Enough already.

Of course, you don't have to take Goolsbee's word for it. Your own eyes will suffice.

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This week, Rex Nutting of the MarketWatch caused a stir with his analysis correctly showing that federal spending has hardly budged under President Obama, rising at the slowest pace since the Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House. Predictably, James Pethokoukis of the conservative American Enterprise Institute cited the jump in Washington's spending as a percentage of the U.S. economy to comically "prove" that "actually, the Obama spending binge really did happen." Comically, that is, because Pethokoukis conveniently ignores the staggering economic contraction resulting from the Bush recession, with GDP only last year having returned to 2008 levels. Even less surprising, the perpetual tax-cutters of the right neglected to mention that thanks to the steep recession and the Treasury-draining Bush tax cuts, total federal tax revenues as a percentage of GDP hit their lowest level since 1950.

On January 7, 2009, Reuters reported that President Bush was bequeathing a $1.2 trillion budget deficit to his successor. That record gap was fueled by Bush's $700 billion TARP program and plummeting tax revenue due to the shrinking American economy. As Reuters noted, President-Elect Obama "said he expects deficits around $1 trillion for years, forcing tough budget choices."

Which is exactly what came to pass. But even with the 2009 stimulus program and the necessarily growing outlays for Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other safety net programs, those trillion deficits had less to do with Barack Obama boosting spending than the dramatic loss of tax revenue. As former Reagan administration official Bruce Bartlett explained in October 2009:

According to the Congressional Budget Office's January 2009 estimate for fiscal year 2009, outlays were projected to be $3,543 billion and revenues were projected to be $2,357 billion, leaving a deficit of $1,186 billion. Keep in mind that these estimates were made before Obama took office, based on existing law and policy, and did not take into account any actions that Obama might implement...

Now let's fast forward to the end of fiscal year 2009, which ended on September 30. According to CBO, it ended with spending at $3,515 billion and revenues of $2,106 billion for a deficit of $1,409 billion.

To recap, the deficit came in $223 billion higher than projected [in January], but spending was $28 billion and revenues were $251 billion less than expected. Thus we can conclude that more than 100 percent of the increase in the deficit since January is accounted for by lower revenues. Not one penny is due to higher spending.

Obama's own tax cuts, the ones contained in the February 2009 stimulus bill, "reduced revenues in FY2009 by $98 billion over what would otherwise have been the case."

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Now that we have finally fixed the FAA funding problem, another major funding bill is expiring and will need to be reauthorized or readjusted on September 30th.

The Federal Gasoline Tax collects 18.4 percent per gallon of gas and 24.4 percent per gallon of diesel and pays for a majority of our transportation and highway projects across the country. But the reality is that it is yet another tax on Americans and we all know that the Tea Party Congress doesn't like that. This time the public is behind them. In a May survey Rasmussen Reports found that 44 percent of Americans favor eliminating the federal gas tax, but those numbers are actually down from 60 percent in early 2008 when gas prices were through the roof.

Interestingly, however, most people (60 percent) believe the gas tax goes up every year according to a 2009 Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research survey, but the reality is it hasn't moved since 1993. That shouldn't preclude the tea party from taking another hard stance against taxes and spending. After all our government is hurting and we need to make drastic cuts, right? Sacrifices? Taxes like these prevent businesses from doing business because they pay such a huge amount in transportation each year. I can see the arguments developing as I type.

In a surly unrelated story, two tea loving members of Congress are taking their own action on transportation funding. Rep. James Lankford and Sen. Tom Coburn, both from Oklahoma, have authored a bill that would opt states out of all federal highway and mass transit funding. The State Transportation and Flexibility Act would leave the revenue earned from the gas tax to the states to decide how to use it. The Oklahoma leaders aren't the only gas tax foes, 13 additional Senators and 23 members of Congress have signed onto the bill. This includes seven members of the Tea Party Caucus and Rep. Ron Paul.

In a graphic done by ESRI, counties across the country are highlighted if they have "structurally deficient bridges." In Coburn and Lankford's state a full third of the counties have over a hundred bridges categorized as deficient. But Senator Coburn believes “Washington’s addiction to spending has bankrupted the Highway Trust Fund."

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It may help that the Very Serious NY Times is pointing out that not every Republican thinks refusing to raise taxes is the best plan to help the economy:

WASHINGTON — The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity.

[...] Among those calling for a mix of cuts and revenues are onetime standard-bearers of Republican economic philosophy like Martin Feldstein, an adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., Treasury secretary to President George W. Bush, underscoring the deepening divide between party establishment figures and the Tea Party-inspired Republicans in Congress and running for the White House.

“I think the U.S. has every chance of having a good year next year, but the politicians are doing their damnedest to prevent it from happening — the Republicans are — and the Democrats to my eternal bafflement have not stood their ground,” Ian C. Shepherdson, chief United States economist for High Frequency Economics, a research firm, said in an interview.

As for the longer term, Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics research at Bank of America, wrote this week that “Given the scale of the debt problem, a credible plan requires both revenue enhancement measures and entitlement reform. Washington’s recent debt deal did not include either.”

Thom Hartmann points out what you're not hearing in the media about the S&P downgrade:

Have you seen, anywhere, in any media, or even heard reported or repeated on NPR, the following sentence? “We have changed our assumption on this because the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.”

It’s right there on Page 4 of the official Standard & Poors “Research Update” – the actual report on what they did and why – published on August 5th as the explanation for why they believe Congress – and even the Gang of Twelve – will be unable to actually deal with the US debt crisis.

Perhaps it’s just lazy – the bullet points at the beginning of the report don’t mention the Republicans or taxes, but instead just say, for example (part of one of six quick bullet-points): “[T]he downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges…”

In order to figure out that one of the reasons why is that “Republicans in the Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues,” a hard-working reporter would have to read to page four of the eight-page report.   It’s just too much effort for most reporters?

Although they do also mention this in the very first sentence of the report: “We lowered our long-term rating on the U.S. because we believe that the prolonged controversy over raising the statutory debt ceiling and the related fiscal policy debate indicate that further near-term progress containing the growth in public spending, especially on entitlements, or on reaching an agreement on raising revenues is less likely than we previously assumed and will remain a contentious and fitful process.” (Italics mine)

Or could it be that many reporters – and virtually all of the television talking heads – are themselves relatively high income-earners who don’t relish the idea of higher taxes?

Or could it be that reporters are afraid that if they report the actual language of the S&P Research Report, then Republicans will punish them by denying them “access” – i.e. refusing to show up on their programs – which is the career and show kiss-of-death for radio and TV programs that rely on big-name politicians to work?

Again: Can someone in the spineless, co-opted corporate media please do their job and explain to us why the unAmerican pledge to Pope Grover takes precedence over oath of office? Instead of just saying, "That's the way it is," look a little deeper and ask why Grover gets to pick the Super Committee. I mean, is it a good thing that our Congress is dictated to by a little tin god? All hail, Caesar!

Norquist said he has already been assured by “the right people” that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will not choose anyone willing to give ground on raising taxes, and he is confident enough to leave town on Wednesday for August vacation.

Norquist said he would like Boehner to name House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

He said he would be “fine” with leadership using the opportunity to give a conservative freshman the chance to shine, mentioning Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.).

Similarly, with respect to the Senate, Norquist can see McConnell appointing a young gun like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) to the panel to give him a bigger platform. He said he would like to see Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) appointed.

Norquist does not want to see former Gang of Six Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) or Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) on board because they made “troubling” statements in support of revenue increases during the deficit negotiations this spring. He said that if Gang of Six Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) made stronger commitments to oppose taxes, he could be OK with that appointment.