Those of you whose attention spans last longer than 15 seconds probably remember all the doom and gloom about exploding federal deficits when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (a.k.a. the Republican tax cuts) passed. We’ll allow that those doomsayers were correct about the exploding deficits, but the blame certainly can’t be placed on insufficient revenue.

Instead, according to the United States Treasury, tax collections for the first half of FY2022, which began last October 1, set a new record. For the first time during a six-month period, over $2 trillion went into the federal coffers. For the full fiscal year running through this September, the Treasury is predicting a staggering collection total of $4,436,626,000,000 — a figure that will still come up over $1 trillion short of this fiscal year’s projected spending. By way of comparison, however, that revenue would have covered any pre-COVID budget as written, up to FY2019.

Considering that many of us were alive at a time when the entire federal budget was less than $1 trillion (that being the early years of the Clinton administration), it’s shocking to see what the twin forces of avarice and inflation have done to our spending habits.

Yet there are those in the Biden administration and Congress who see this bountiful harvest of federal funding coming in still demanding more. Democrats wish to claw back half of the corporate rate cut (from 35% to 21%) featured in the GOP plan Donald Trump signed — this despite the fact that corporate tax revenue collected this year is on track to exceed previous CBO projections all the way until FY2028, according to the Wall Street Journal editorial board:

What accounts for this windfall for Uncle Sam and a comparable one for state tax coffers? Corporate profits have been very strong, and government is sharing in the wealth even at a lower rate. Inflation in the last year has also increased nominal corporate profits, though CBO’s estimates did include some inflation.

But the Occam’s razor policy answer is that corporate tax reform worked as its sponsors predicted: Lowering the rates while broadening the base by eliminating loopholes created incentives for more efficient investment decisions that paid off for shareholders, workers and the government.

Included in that windfall is the repatriation from abroad, which has added $1.8 trillion to the total, not to mention created thousands of new jobs for American workers. Naturally, some portion of their good fortune also accrues to the federal total — in part via the payroll tax, but in other ways as well. Political analyst Terence P. Jeffrey states the obvious:

If Biden were to succeed in increasing the corporation income tax to 28%, it would impose increased costs on every American consumer who purchases products — with their own after-tax income — from the corporations Biden targets.

If Biden increases the federal tax on corporations that make automobiles, it will increase the prices Americans pay for cars.

If Biden increases the federal tax on corporations that produce food products and own grocery stores, it will increase what Americans must pay to feed their families.

Biden is not a champion of the middle class. He is a champion of big government.

For decades, some among us have expressed the sentiment that our Republic will last only as long as people refrain from voting themselves a share of the national treasury. Since the days of the New Deal, though, our government’s purpose has seemingly become that of being a way station for wealth transfer, with those employed by the government getting their cut along the way to the tune of $30 trillion in national debt.

There’s a reason we brought up all these facts and figures, including the historic data. It’s to point out our fiscal problem is in no way whatsoever an issue with revenue. With the federal income we have, just getting back to the spending levels of the early Trump years would present us with a budget much closer to being balanced, bearing in mind that increasing interest rates on that aforementioned national debt will take a larger chunk of our budget. Instead, the Biden approach of putting drunken sailors to shame with more spending will lead us to a situation just six years down the road where the nearly $6 trillion in revenue comes nowhere close to the bloated $7.5 trillion in spending. Yes, instead of showing some fiscal responsibility and maybe paying off some of the deficit with this largesse, it’s trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.

So where are those Democrat fiscal hawks who caterwauled about Trump’s deficits now?