Deficit as a Percent of GDP

On Tuesday, I posted a chart showing the growing budget deficit and received this request:

Better yet, show outlays and receipts as % of GDP and take it back to 1945.

Unfortunately, I only was able to dig out budget data going back to the early 1980's, but it does have an interesting story to tell. Over the past 12 months, the deficit has grown to ~6% of nominal GDP (for December 2008 I assumed nominal GDP decreased -1% QoQ).



At first glance I was relieved that we were only in a situation as bad as that of the early 1990's, but then I forgot this deficit doesn't yet include any of the new stimulus plan.

Even scarier (at least to me) is looking at the budget surplus / deficit as a percent of receipts, the pre-stimulus deficit is now a whopping 33% of total receipts.