News media figures have fixated on debt and deficit spending in advance of an expected dust-up over a vote to extend the nation's debt ceiling. Often this coverage comes at the expense of a more robust discussion of joblessness.

But this disjointed discourse masks the effect that the recession has had on the nation's bottom line. Friday, the Congressional Budget Office reported that federal revenue in the final three months of 2010 was 8 percent higher than the same period a year earlier -- largely due to the improving economic conditions:

Revenues through December totaled about $531 billion, $43 billion more than in the same period last year. Most of that net increase stems from higher withholding of individual income tax and social insurance payroll taxes, which rose by $33 billion (or 8 percent) in the first quarter because of strengthening economic conditions. Revenues also increased because individual tax refunds were lower than the abnormally high amounts for the same period a year before.

The math is really quite simple -- as unemployed workers return to the payrolls, they stop receiving unemployment insurance (a federal expenditure) and begin to pay withholding taxes (federal revenue).

Will the media notice?