Fiscal Policy

What are the three major categories of revenues for the federal government? Please comment on each and indicate their relative importance to each other. Relative importance can be indicated by dollar amounts, percent of total revenue or expenditure or, though less informative, by ranking.

The three categories of revenues for the federal government include: individual income taxes, corporate income taxes and social insurance taxes. These areas are interconnected to each other based upon: the strength of the economy and areas they are focused on. For example, in 2009 individual income taxes were $1.01 trillion. This is the largest category for revenues received. While corporate income taxes were $223 billion and social insurance receipts were $915 billion. In the case of individual and corporate incomes taxes, the total amounts were impacted by shifts in the economy (which were down from the previous year). While social insurance receipts were up...
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