January 1, 2013, the U.S. Senate resolved its fiscal-cliff negotiations by agreeing on a $600 billion tax hike—$60 billion a year for ten years. Just a few days earlier, on December 28, 2012, the Senate approved a $60.4 billion aid package to help New York and New Jersey recover from the devastation caused by one storm—Superstorm Sandy—that raked across the eastern United States in October 2012. In other words, we spent on one storm all the new additional tax revenue for that year.
