To the left is ONE BILLION DOLLARS and those are 100 bills.
Below is ONE TRILLION and those are double stacks of 100 dollar bills. YES, that little speck on the left is the same buy as above.
The U.S. budget deficit has topped $1 trillion for a fourth straight year, but a modest improvement in economic growth helped narrow the gap by $207 billion compared with last year.
The Treasury Department said Friday the deficit for the 2012 budget year totaled $1.1 trillion. Tax revenue rose 6.4 percent from last year to more than $2.4 trillion, helping contain the deficit.
The government's revenue rose as more people got jobs and received income. Corporations also contributed more tax revenue than in 2011.
Government spending fell 1.7 percent to $3.5 trillion. The decline reflected, in part, less defense spending as U.S. military involvement in Iraq was winding down.
Barack Obama's presidency has now coincided with four straight $1 trillion-plus annual budget deficits — the first in history and an issue in an election campaign that ends in Nov. 6.
