The year 2023 was a pretty good one for the economy, whether judged by the labor market or economic growth. Despite this good economic growth, total receipts of the federal government were down about 7 percent from 2022 (note: I’m using calendar years, rather than fiscal years). Here’s a chart (note: in NOMINAL dollars) of total federal revenue since 2009:

I want to stress that these are nominal dollars (there, I’ve said it three times, hopefully there is no confusion). Nominal dollars are usually not the best way to look at historical data, but for purposes of looking at recent government budgets, sometimes it is. Especially when revenue is declining: if I adjusted this for inflation, the decline in 2023 would be even larger!

You’ll notice also that the decline in 2023 is even larger than the decline in 2020, the height of the pandemic when many people were out of work due to government regulations and changes in consumer behavior. The 2023 decline is big!

So, what the heck in going on with federal revenue in 2023?

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