If The US Government Were The Average Household, What Would Its Budget Be?
If the government made $1,000 a week (about the median household income in the US) what would its budget look like? MSNBC took last year’s budget and calculated the “household” budget of the US Government. Here it is:
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It would be interesting to compare different countries like US, China, UK and India. Could be used for benchmarking!
Wow!! I’d carve up the pie a bit differently, but this looks much better than I’d have expected. I would have expected the combination of military and interest to be even bigger. Education is pathetically low, as is the space program. But, if we reduce military spending, say by getting out of Iraq, we’d have quite a bit to shift around.
Also, Social Security should not be on that chart at all. It is a completely separate pool of money. Yes, it really still is. And, it is only shown on paper to be part of the rest of the finances of the country because it is in such GOOD shape that it makes the rest of the numbers look better.
Yes, I know few will believe that last statement. But, for those who do not, I have to suggest that you have been sold a bill of goods by corporate america, who hate social security because they foot half the bill. The real numbers, last I saw them, showed that with very minor tweaking of the numbers, social security would be well funded for another 40 years. How many government programs can say that?
This graph is counter to the one on this site.
http://tinyurl.com/yv9phl
[Editor: Please use tinyurl.com for long urls]
And it looks like we don’t spend much on education but that is not really a federal function. The states and local spend lots and lots of money on education.
Employers don’t “foot half the bill.” That is money which could be paid as salary and other benefits if it wasn’t being claimed by the government beforehand. This employers pay half nonsense is just a nice way to disguise the cost of social security from Americans; and for the government to net a bit more in the process.
my pie would be dramatically different
cut all the everything else out
put the social security back in a lock box
remove the school spending (send it back to the states where it belongs) with the taxes paid for it so the state can run their own schools
have a real immigration policy so that the healthcare can be about half (send the illegals home or at least stop all the free health care)
send the college spending back to the states (with the tax money collected for it from each state) and let the state handle their own education
and increase the space budget but privatize it so it is not so wasteful
that is what I would do I were GOD
Instead of taking a second job, cut the spending. Eliminate Social Security, Medical Programs, & Income Security, than decrease taxes substantially.
These kinds of apples-and-oranges articles about the government always fail to make a point… other than the writer believes the reader is too dumb to understand anything outside of his or her own condition.
To The Moon, Mars and Beyond…
By 2020.
On 5 bucks?
That’s what I call ‘Faster, Cheaper, Better’… :\
The solution to our deficits are tax cuts. Less revenue = more income.
It’s PROVEN! Tax cuts always pay for themselves. If we had near 0% flat income tax, the government would be so flush with money we could fund everything with piles of cash left over.
(CRIPES THAT SOUNDS STUPID! Can you believe that not long ago the conservatives were actually preaching this with a straight face?)
By the way, what is “income security”? Is that another term for welfare?
#9 get a clue. The formula is LOWER TAX RATES = More Revenue. It worked. http://tinyurl.com/2s5f9
#11, At some point on the Laffer Curve though, this no longer becomes true. I’d rather they just make massive cuts to federal spending. Actually, since it is the states which provide most of the services, most of the taxation we experience should be at that level… or lower. Our current scheme is severely backwards.
#12 Mike, I agree completely but I doubt that we will ever make it that point.
I also agree that most taxation should be at the state and local level. Good luck getting Washington to do that.
#11 – Oh Snap! You know when the Laffer Curve is mentioned trouble is afoot.
#5 that is what I would do I were GOD
Comment by Pmitchell — 4/18/2007 @ 7:27 am
Oh.
From some posts you’ve made in the past, I thought you were God.
that was not very nice
why are you so rude all the time
> Also, Social Security should not be on that chart at all. It is a completely separate pool of money.
No it’s not, that’s a standard myth/LIE.
There IS NO “TRUST” FUND.
Moneys PAID OUT this year come from the general pool of federal intake for THIS YEAR.
This is nominally supposed to be balanced against the income paid into the system by SS payments, but, in reality, it all gets dumped into the same central slush fund as your “income taxes” and doled out just like the pie chart shows.
> The solution to our deficits are tax cuts. Less revenue = more income.
> (CRIPES THAT SOUNDS STUPID! Can you believe that not long ago the conservatives were actually preaching this with a straight face?)
My, you do sound stupid.
Here’s the actual equation, for the not-so-stupid:
Lower tax percentage=more economic growth
More economic growth=more taxes taken in on those lower percentages
More simply, suppose the government takes 15% as taxes, and the GDP is 10 trillion. This means the government gets $1.5 trillion of that.
Now, suppose they cut taxes to 14%, which stimulates the economy so it grows by 10%, so the GDP goes to 11 trillion… Now they get 14% of 11T$, which is… GASP!!! MORE MONEY!!! — that is, it’s 1.54 trillion.
In reality it’s much more complex than that, and there clearly is an optimal tax rate which balances growth and income, so that any increase in tax means less money and any decrease in tax means less money. In reality, the current levels are well away from this “perfect point” and thus cuts=more money.
Since this has been demonstrated at least twice in the last two decades, it’s up to the deniers to explain why it still fits the results, even though it’s counter to their simple idiot ideas of how one of the most complex things humans experience works (i.e., a national economy).