“The White House hailed a return to “fiscal normalcy” Wednesday, reporting that the federal budget deficit shrank to $483 billion last year, the lowest level as a share of the economy since 2007, before the Great Recession.

Driven by higher tax revenues, the shortfall for the fiscal year that ended in September was sharply lower than the $680 billion tallied in fiscal 2013 and about a third the size of the record $1.4 trillion deficit hit in 2009, the year President Obama took office. At roughly 2.8 percent of the overall economy, last year’s deficit also achieves a White House goal for deficit reduction two years earlier than expected.

In a briefing for reporters, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and White House budget director Shaun Donovan touted the year-end numbers, noting that the good news comes at a time when government spending has risen slightly and Washington has abandoned “harmful excessive budget austerity,” as Donovan put it.”* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.

*Read more here from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/15/nations-budget-deficit-falls-to-lowest-level-since-obama-took-office/