Courtesy Houston Chronical
|
Enough $100 bills to fill 22 Astrodomes
News accounts on the latest federal budget deal gave the numbers in a vacuum, e.g., “The deal cuts $38 billion from last year’s budget. It’s being called the largest domestic spending cut in U.S. history” (source). How can an individual voter make sense of quantities that are ordinarily written in scientific notation? I think the easiest way is to divide everything by 100,000,000 (10^8).
Let’s start with federal spending. The FY 2011 federal budget is approximately $3.82 trillion (3.82×10^12). Of that, approximately $2.17 trillion will be paid for by taxes collected and the remaining $1.65 trillion will be borrowed from our grandchildren. If we divide everything by 100 million, the numbers begin to make more sense.
We have a family that is spending $38,200 per year. The family’s income is $21,700 per year. The family adds $16,500 in credit card debt every year in order to pay its bills. After a long and difficult debate among family members, keeping in mind that it was not going to be possible to borrow $16,500 every year forever, the parents and children agreed that a $380/year premium cable subscription could be terminated. So now the family will have to borrow only $16,120 per year.
Inflation.
Screw the banks, and savers like me.
Default on the national debt! It would start an interesting conversation. If the system is broke, let the broke part start NOW!
Big difference to the “home” analogy is that the gov also sets its income within limits.
Yep, so MANY issues, all interactive.
We’re doomed. Teabags had a chance to be a force for good but they have turned their fiscal/economic concerns into a culture war.
Teabags will go from wanting to save every precious sperm into a society that will be eating its own.
I challenge anyone to set forth the argument that the Super Rich need more tax cuts while the poor, working, and middle classes need service cuts. Go ahead: make that argument.
If not, Wake Up Stoopid Hoomans. The Republicans want to Kill America but they can’t do it without your vote.
Really B., you want more spew from Alf?
Very good topic. This highlights what a joke the “budget deal” was.
You gave loons like Alfred applauding the “huge teabagger victory” when in fact it wad all Congressional masturbation of meaningless cuts while leaving the military and entitlements alone.
Instead, huge debates over Planned Parenthood funding as part the budget debate. Folks, the Christian Taliban has hijacked the government and eating time on bullshit topics like abortion. Who gives a rats ass about this shit when the house is burning down.
Furthermore, the only was to restore balance is to include raising taxes on the billionaires who are paying a fraction of what they were paying under Reagan. Astonishly, the sheeple fail to comprehend this.
In the mean time, watch the show on cutting school lunch programs, NPR and Planned Parenthood as the topic of debate to balance the budget. Why? Because the Christian Taliban has overtaken the agenda ANC priorities.
What==Alf the Retarded Christian spews no matter what. He is less than a cipher. Chaff unto the wheat. To be avoided except as target practice.
Ha, ha. Took me a few months to realize he wasn’t kidding. He should be though.
Yikes, my iPhone tapping resulted in some grammatical errors! Spellchecker on this thing sucks.
Hmm, looks like Dallas and I agree. Let’s return to Reagan era tax rate of 28% as the top marginal rate.
Why not measure the debt in Light Year Miles (LYM)? Since light travels 186,000 miles in one second, it travels 5.88 trillion miles in a year. Thus, the current debt is only 1.6 LYM.
If we chip in $186,000 a second, every second for 1.6 years, the debt would just disappear.
New IRS rules:
1. How much did you make?
2. How much did you spend?
3. Send the rest in.
Oh fine. They cut spending by $38 billion. Big deal. It is just a drop in the bucket on the trillions of dollars of deficit spending that Congress spent just this year. Taxes don’t pay for what the government does. It is all loans from China that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back with interest.
Bobbo is call Republicans out over wanting to cut funds to Planned Parenthood. Cutting those funds is a good start, but that is just a drop in the bucket. They need to start by defunding Obama’s war in Libya, and yes, we can scale back on the military a bit and save billions. I would also transfer control of the Department of Education to the individual states, drop some of these Three Letter Acronym agencies that no longer do what they were founded to do. In fact, anything the Constitution doesn’t require the Federal Government to do can be transfered to the states. Also get rid of the TSA flunkies that are feeling up children and lets get rid of the DEA while we are at it and legalize drugs. We spend far too much money on the drug war which allows SWAT teams to drive a tank into someone’s house because they smoked a bit of weed. Let karma punish the dopes and not pay for expensive tanks to transport police to do it.
It’s very simple to solve this. Simply outlaw debt and credit within the government, under penalty of death. If they take in “approximately $2.17 trillion” in taxes, that’s all they have to spend. End of story. Attempting to spend more than what is collected results in execution.
Better yet, make the position of executioner a national lottery that everyone over the age of 18 can buy as many tickets they want for $1 for the chance to win the position, then televise it for $4.99 pay-per-view.
Benji======WHEN are you going to spend your time away from here to get some edumacation? Jebus Boy!!! You are growing into a real retard.
But, as a rample, I’m about to finish my first six pack, lets parse:
Bobbo is call Republicans out over wanting to cut funds to Planned Parenthood. Cutting those funds is a good start, /// To what end? Both morally and fiscally PP aids the “actual” Teabag nuttery but somehow the dogma got corrupted on transmission. Figure that out and get back to us?
but that is just a drop in the bucket. They need to start by defunding Obama’s war in Libya, /// If Obama was as clever as a weasel, the Libya War is but the camel’s nose under the tent to get Nato and Arab League to pick up more of these costs. Probably not as Obama is no Machiavelli, but “could be.”
and yes, we can scale back on the military a bit and save billions. /// How about scale back “totally.” In fact, I would charge for our services or “So Sorry.” This deficit whore could be turned into a revenue center.
I would also transfer control of the Department of Education to the individual states, /// Control? BS. How about funding and expenditure. Ever travel the deep South?
drop some of these Three Letter Acronym agencies that no longer do what they were founded to do. /// Sorry Boyo–got to be more specific than that
In fact, anything the Constitution doesn’t require the Federal Government to do can be transfered to the states. /// Can be, yes but the difference between the Failed Articles of Federation and the successful Constiution is the commerce clause. Silly to recommend the system that was a demonstrated failure. Why do you hate America Benji?
Also get rid of the TSA flunkies that are feeling up children and lets get rid of the DEA while we are at it and legalize drugs. We spend far too much money on the drug war which allows SWAT teams to drive a tank into someone’s house because they smoked a bit of weed. Let karma punish the dopes and not pay for expensive tanks to transport police to do it. /// Yea verily.
Still got a whole lotta work to do there Benji.
I like National Review’s idea. Any employee who was not given an exemption for the government shutdown, should be fired, and then people can reapply for their jobs.
Few presidential candidates have made more specific promises to American voters than Barack Obama. Here is a handy checklist of some of the biggest Obama promises — culled from his “Blueprint for Change,” his campaign speeches and advertisements. Save it. And see how he did once he loses his re-election attempt.
* Give a tax break to 95% of Americans.
* Restore Clinton-era tax rates on top income earners.
* “If you make under $250,000, you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime. Not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes. Nothing.”
* Dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes.
* Give American businesses a $3,000 tax credit for every job they create in the U.S.
* Eliminate capital gains taxes for small business and startup companies.
* Eliminate income taxes for seniors making under $50,000.
* Expand the child and dependent care tax credit.
* Expand the earned income tax credit.
* Create a universal mortgage credit.
* Create a small business health tax credit.
* Provide a $500 “make work pay” tax credit to small businesses.
* Provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to families.
Some additional Obama promises to help understand Federal Spending.
Energy
* Spend $15 billion a year on renewable sources of energy.
* Eliminate oil imports from the Middle East in 10 years.
* Increase fuel economy standards by 4% a year.
* Weatherize 1 million homes annually.
* Ensure that 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012.
Environment
* Create 5 million green jobs.
* Implement a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
* Get 1 million plug-in hybrids on the road by 2015.
Labor
* Sign a fair pay restoration act, which would overturn the Supreme Court’s pay discrimination ruling.
* Sign into law an employee free choice act — aka card check — to make it easier for unions to organize.
* Make employers offer seven paid sick days per year.
* Increase the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2009.
National security
* Shut down Gitmo
* Remove troops from Iraq by the summer of 2010.
* Cut spending on unproven missile defense systems.
* No more homeless veterans.
* Stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq.
* Finish the fight against Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorists.
Social Security
* Work in a “bipartisan way to preserve Social Security for future generations.”
* Impose a Social Security payroll tax on incomes above $250,000.
* Match 50% of retirement savings up to $1,000 for families earning less than $75,000.
Education
* Demand higher standards and more accountability from our teachers.
Spending
* Go through the budget, line by line, ending programs we don’t need and making the ones we do need work better and cost less.
* Slash earmarks.
Health care
* Lower health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.
* Let the uninsured get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress get.
* Stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most.
* Spend $10 billion over five years on health care information technology.
The Republicans insist that the deficit will only be significantly reduced by spending cuts, not by increasing taxes. That’s because most of them are bought and paid for, by the big corporations who aren’t paying any US taxes now. Besides just reigning in spending (on multiple wars). The US ought to require all corporations who make money from sales in the US, to pay some percentage of taxes in the US too. Regardless of setting up dummy offices in Switzerland or Ireland, to avoid paying practically any taxes. Especially if they get around to forcing a sales tax on online sales transactions. How then are these corporate deadbeats still immune to US taxation? Just because Boehner says they are?!!
This analogy sounds like something my wife did several years ago when we had income. The difference of course is we’re not talking about premium cable service, we’re talking about programs that affect people’s lives. If they, the politicians, really cared, they would do something about the bleeding of jobs overseas, the defense budget, tax cuts for the rich. But instead, they are villainizing the poorer people who need the help. Shame on them! And shame on those who buy into bullshit!
I guess white suburban males over 45 represent are the only freedom loving Americans.
Loon Alfred continues to follow his corporate masters brainwashing. That is, focus only on the spend part of the equation and direct the revenue piece to the working slob.
http://ritholtz.com/blog/2011/04/corporate-tax-rates-then-and-now/
If we don’t address the revenue piece by taxing the 1-2% owning 1/2 the wealth and corporate tax taxes, it is all a joke.
In the mean time, the Christian Taliban is driving Congressional agenda to debate Planned Parenthood and NPR funding. Why? Because the CT has infiltrated our government.
@ Taxed Enough Already Dude said,-
The TEA party is no better than the other two parties. All they are after is cutting spending PERIOD. None of the parties are able to strike a balance of the people’s needs and the spending of government. And it seems that the people in the public eye who say they represent the TEA party are dumber than a box of rocks. For example take Bachmann. If the news channels can get back to stating facts and not opinions AND Politicians can open their mouth without massively distorting the truth or outright lying we could really get stuff done. It is so much easier to just complain and blame the other side than really do anything about it. Also, there is a tendency to blame the government worker right now for all of the woes of the country. It is not and was not caused by those workers but by the people at the top who created the positions in the first place. NO ONE is blameless or entirely at fault so we need to stop pretending that killing Unions, or making government employees pay by eliminating their jobs will fix anything. The problem will not go away by overtaxing corporations and businesses either. We need to reduce government waste by eliminating those things that are not needed. The only way to truly do that is to debate the facts and stop having special interests “buying” politics and politicians. Politicians also should not be able to make a career out of their jobs and need to have limits on how long they are in office. Too many lies are being told from all sides and no one is willing to call out the liars and let the facts speak for themselves. The people that call out the others only make lies themselves. The undistorted truth will set us all free.
#8 Mike, you’re starting to wise up! Leave the dark side and see the light.
This is a good analysis of the President’s budget plan.
Well thought out and considered, as usual for the Wall Street Journal.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703730104576260911986870054.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Has anyone ever done a study as to why there is such a disconnect in logic between how people want a government run and how people run their personal affairs? Is it just a “somebody else will pick up the slack”, attitude? It is surreal watching robots like alfie check the republican box while condemning republicans. Or watching how hard republicans fight to see that children are born only to be abused neglected and cast aside because they are “slackers or too lazy”. How do we get past this disconnect that upper casts have that clearly blinds them to the fact that being born with middle and upper class advantage isn’t the same as being born into poverty and that just maybe it’s more than hard work that makes the difference?
19th Amendment
Civil Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
#30 WW2
Boulder Dam
TVA
Rural Electrification Administration
21st Amendment
etc.
Sorry Al, you lose on this one. 🙂
@ #30 You see alfie, right there is what i am talking about. You see the programs as bankrupt as opposed to the government being bankrupt. Maybe if you start seeing your tax cuts as being bankrupt as well you may stand a chance at seeing that your actually voting republican.
#35 TeaDud
Christianity is a wealth redistribution scheme that has not cured hunger, has caused several wars, been party to child abuse, and has not resulted in the perfect happiness of every person. Therefore it should be disbanded and outlawed.
Funny the conclusions you can reach when you put blinders on.
@ #35, Private enterprise becomes state enterprise when buisness runs runs the government. Rap your frightened little commies are coming mind around that for a bit.