WASHINGTON ECONOMICS - AT 5:32 P.M. ET:  We're getting propagandized about the "end" of the recession and the dawning of the age of Obamius.  The figures tell a different story:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The recession is starving the government of tax revenue, just as the president and Congress are piling a major expansion of health care and other programs on the nation's plate and struggling to find money to pay the tab.

The numbers could hardly be more stark: Tax receipts are on pace to drop 18 percent this year, the biggest single-year decline since the Great Depression, while the federal deficit balloons to a record $1.8 trillion.

Other figures in an Associated Press analysis underscore the recession's impact: Individual income tax receipts are down 22 percent from a year ago. Corporate income taxes are down 57 percent. Social Security tax receipts could drop for only the second time since 1940, and Medicare taxes are on pace to drop for only the third time ever.

COMMENT:  Two major presidential advisers suggested over the weekend that new taxes, including taxes on the middle class, will be considered.  (See story just below.)  Today, presidential news secretary Robert Gibbs played down their remarks, reiterating Obama's "commitment" not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $250,000 a year. 

Now wait.  If that commitment still stands, how do we account for the advisers' comments?  Don't they know the policy?  Have they met the president?  Chatted with him?  It's inconceivable that advisers on the level of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Larry Summers would make the comments they made unless they were on firm ground.  They're bright guys.  They know the impact of the word "taxes."

So, we're spending like crazy, taking in very little, and may need new taxes, except the White House says we won't.  This is the economic policy of the new administration.  Yes they can.

August 3, 2009