Loan Modification

Over the past 60 years, there have only been three other years with a similar or higher rate of revenue growth to the one estimated to occur in 2015: 1979, 1980, and 1981.

There are two things we might note about those prior three years ('79-'81) of rapid federal revenue growth. The first is that those same years represent the second, first, and fourth highest rates of yearly inflation in 50+ years of data, coming in at 11.3%, 13.5%, and 10.4%, respectively.

Does the Obama budget assume similar enormous rates of inflation? Nope. It assumes 2% or less inflation in every year of its projections out through 2015. So it's not inflation that will be driving the enormous revenue growth.