The proposed budget for the federal government is #3.73 Trillion. The population of the US is 312 million. The federal government alone spends $12,000 for each man, woman and child in the country. That's $48,000 for a family of four. This is insane. Who pays? The affluent and future generations. Anybody who works at all loses %14.2 of the first dollar they earn to FICA and medicare.
New York State spends an additional $7,000 PER PERSON! For a family of four, the state and federal governments spend $76,000!
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To make matters worse, of the $3.73 trillion to be spent in 2012, $1.6 trillion is deficit spending -- that is, money the country does not have, does not expect to get, and will have to borrow. That is one-third of the total budget or, as somebody pointed out on another blog -- the plan for 2012 is to spend 50 percent more than we will take in.
It is fascinating to go to this page, scroll down, and click on the graphic near the bottom. You will see a graph illustrating exactly where all the money budgeted for 2012 will go, drawn in such a way that it's easy to see the relative sizes of the various categories of spending. The proportions are enlightening -- and horrifying. If you mouse over any part of the graphic, a box will pop up to tell you what percent of the total spending goes to each. (For instance, 6.1 % of the total will go to interest payments on the ballooning national debt.) I added up some of the percentages and discovered that more than half of the 2012 budget -- 55 % -- will go for entitlement spending on various benefit payments, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment benefits. That's compared to less than 20 % for national defense.
This really is insane.
And for more insanity, let's talk about the debt instead of the deficit. (As a reminder, the deficit is the difference in any given year between spending and revenues; the debt is the total amount owed -- that is, the sum of all the deficits.) Right now, the federal debt is about $14.1 trillion, or about $45,000 for every American citizen. Does Obama's budget proposal call for paying this down, or reducing it in any way? Why no, it does not -- instead, his plan calls for almost DOUBLING the amount of federal debt over the next 10 years, by adding $13 trillion in deficit spending. He calls this "a responsible approach that puts the nation on a path to live within our means so we can invest in our future." To which I can only respond, WTF?
For one more fun graphic, this page has a really well-done explanation of just how much money $1 trillion is. Don't miss the little bitty man standing beside the pallets full of $1 trillion in hundred-dollar bills!
Well at least they're doing something about those damn buses! They are just too inexpensive, it's infuriating!
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