So... why is the deficit so low?

Couple things.

that particular site ive found to be innacurate in some circumstances. its not an official site

so deficit. you didnt mention years but

here is the break down.

2009 Receipts ~ 2.1 tril Spending ~3.5 tril

2010 Receipts ~ 2.1 tril Spending ~3.45 tril

2011 Receipts ~2.3 tril Spending ~3.6 tril

2012 Receipts ~2.49 tril Spending ~3.8 tril

2013 est Receipts ~ 2.9 tril Spending ~3.8 tril

So as you can see the deficit hasnt gotten smaller but for this year they are banking that there will be more revenue because of the tax increases. its still a 900 billion dollar deficit its as opposed to a 1.3 - 1.4 tril dollar deficit that it has been for the last 4 years.

But again thats assuming it works out like they want it to.

and i get my sources directly from government data.

Were still going to run a trillion dollars in spending over what is going to be collected. Now lets see 6 trillion / 4 years is 1.5 trillion over spending for the last 4 years.

It is high for two reasons. Less people are working, hence less revenue. Plus, there is more spending to take care of those people not working, through federal extensions of unemployment in addition to support of those who give up and are on welfare or dependents of those on welfare. More spending plus less revenue equals higher deficit.

The deficit is not low at all. It's over $1 trillion.

Money is just paper, it is what is behind the paper that is the money. Be it gold, assets etc There has to be something behind that paper to make it worth something. In the old days you could get gold for your money, but yes i see your point.

You don't understand. One trillion is 1,000 billion which is 1,000,000 million. That's a lot of money, and our debt is over 16 trillion..

Take a look at this link for a comparison:

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

You're actually trying to learn something in Politics section?? that was your first mistake because you gonna get all kinds of fcked up answers

american taxpayers give the federal reserve $200B a year and washington DC gets to do whatever the fvck they fvcking want to all the fvcking time.......

it isn't low, we owe 16 trillion to china. that's money that future generations down the road will have to be paying off.

by definition, we don't have it, because we continue to spend more than we take in