Directly and indirectly, $17,430 is what the Federal government takes each year, on average, from each American who works, not to mention the big chunk out of their lives taken through regulation. Who gets this $17,430 after it is extracted from working men and women?
* $3,690 goes to people on Social Security and Disability.
* $3,492 goes to people in war industries.
* $2,166 goes to people on Medicare.
* $1,767 goes to people on Medicaid.
* $1,505 goes to people on food stamps, welfare (assistance), housing, and income payments.
* $1,297 goes to lenders for interest.
* $1,028 goes to people in transportation, environmental, space, science, and regional building industries.
* $ 708 goes to Federal employees for their retirement.
* $ 688 goes to people in educational industries.
* $ 495 goes to veterans.
* $ 402 goes to people in the Federal government for their services.
* $ 244 goes to people overseas.
* $ 187 goes to people in agricultural industries.The figures add to $17,669 because, for one thing, the government borrows more than it takes in. In addition, deciphering and reconciling the government’s various publications and categories introduce fuzziness into the numbers.
Since the numbers apply to the average employed person at all income levels, they don’t apply to every individual. Yet they do apply to all of us as a group.
Here are my estimates of what the breakdown is..
* $3,690 Social Security and Disability (1/4 goes to fraud)
* $3,492 goes to people in war industries (1/2 is waste, Haliburton)
* $2,166 goes to people on Medicare (1/4 to waste, Merck)
* $1,767 goes to people on Medicaid
* $1,505 goes to people on food stamps, welfare (1/4 to fraud)
* $1,297 goes to lenders for interest. (China, Japan, GOP bribes)
* $1,028 goes to people in transportation, environmental, space, science, and regional building industries (more military, different name)
* $ 708 goes to Federal employees for their retirement. (1/3 goes to post office)
* $ 688 goes to people in educational industries (2/3 goes to churches and other GOP gangs)
* $ 495 goes to veterans.
* $ 402 goes to people in the Federal government for their services. (More military and Haliburton)
* $ 244 goes to people overseas. (1/2 for military and Haliburton)
* $ 187 goes to people in agricultural industries. ( 100% to pay farmers not to compete with China or to produce bio fuels)
Chop out the defense industry and you’ve got a nice balanced budget!
“In addition, deciphering and reconciling the government’s various publications and categories introduce fuzziness into the numbers.”
So basically this is a complete guess because our government is WAY too complex to make any sense of.
When can we get some legislators/presidents that will finally start chopping away at all this excess crap and free up millions, if not billions, of citizen’s hard earned money and let it flow back into their hands?
And why $4k to medicare/caid? I say we combine those two and slash the total in half or more. That will save at least a few hundred in managerial expenses.
The “war industries” could be cut down to 1/4 of that and it would be fine. Just don’t go invading several countries at once. We don’t need nearly what we have to defend this country.
Stop only paying the interest and cut into some of the god-damned principle already!
The other Tom — First of all, let me tell you that the managerial/administrative expenses for Medicaid and Medicare are about 2% of their respective budgets. Not a whole lot to cut.
Personally, I think if we add up all the military spending, it’s more like half of that 17k. We need new research and development into alternative fuels, and the space program. We need to pay the farmers to grow bio-alternatives to oil for fuel. We have to take care of our veterans, and should give them more. We should provide health care for EVERY person in the country, like most civilized nations do.
What we REALLY need, is for the Uber-rich to pay more in taxes as a total of their gross income. Cheney grossed nearly 8 million the year before last, and only had to pay taxes on 2 million of that. that would be like me only paying taxes on 15k of my 60k gross pay. This is unreal. The rich are the ones who are robbing this country blind.
Liberals are funny. They still think raising taxes and eliminating military spending are practical ideas.
Now you know why no one on the right is really worked up over the election a few weeks ago: We know damn good and well that failed liberal ideology will eventually become the talking points of the party, the conservative democrats that got elected will become disenfranchised, and the right will take back over.
As for the budget, the answer is simple: Cut everything. It’s the only solution that will get broad support, as “hurting” any one catagory will create too much opposition.
>Chop out the defense industry and you’ve got a nice balanced budget!
Not really. Those SS and Medicare and Medicaid and pensions are set to explode. All of the current deficits are nothing compared to future deficits.
Social security – sure, there is fraud & whatnot, but those ppls paid into it, they should at least get a payout.
Medicare & medicaid are good ideas becasue it sucks for single mothers
the rest of it is complete trash except the following 4 items.
– On food stamps? get a job or kill yerself now.
– War industries are needed, but we also need to stop waring.
– Lenders deserve the interest owed to them
– Cash for depts of Transportation, Agriculture and space/sciences is useful.
The rest should be trashed entirely – and the taxpayer should get the cash. Will this ever happen? no.
#4 What I meant was, combine them to reduce administartive costs, THEN slash it in half. So that the total is maybe $2k. Although $1k is a much better number. And no, we do not need national health care. What we need is to let people take care of themselves and get Big Brother as far away from me and you as possible.
As far as taxes go, just look here. The rich people are certainly robbing this country blind. If anything, they are paying the vast majority of the taxes.
#5 I’m gonna have to agree there. They just don’t get it.
TallWookie, I think we would get along just great 🙂
tallwookie I forgot to add this
“War industries are needed, but we also need to stop waring”
how does that make any sense? if war is not needed then certainly there is no need for an entire industry devoted solely to war, right?
#5 – Liberals are funny. They still think raising taxes and eliminating military spending are practical ideas.
Conservatives are funny. They spend money they don’t have and refuse to manage costs responsibly.
If the military ran as effieciently as Medicare and Medicaid, we wouldn’t have a problem.
Lets see…
USA pays for Military developments, NOt just success.
Let them make a product THEN get paid.
SS, social security and retirement of Heads of state and representitives.
DID YOU KNOW, that when Bush is retired, he gets paid almost EQUAL to what he made as president the rest of his life?
DID you know that retirement from congress and representitives, have a retirement fund, that PAYs them EQUAL to their wages.
Medicare has 1 problem…RULES and regulations. They are rquired to distribute USE of materials over ALL companies. what this means is that IF, 1 company has the best price for the best product, they PROBABLY cant use it.
#10 – Why pay today for what can be financed tomorrow?
#12 – I think the answer is obvious 🙂
Since interest on the debt borrowed to pay for previous tax cuts and deficit spending is 17-19 per cent of every federal tax dollar spent, I call shennanigans on this breakdown.
Cut the $3,492 going to the war industry. It’s not helping our country, our people or our standing in the world, IRAQ WAR case in point.
> Since interest on the debt borrowed
> to pay for previous tax cuts
To *pay* for the tax cuts? There is more tax revenue now than before the tax cuts were instituted. The deficit is not caused by a lack of revenue. The deficit is caused by many, many years of over spending.
Since the #1 job of the Federal gov’t is to provide for the common defense – it’s nothing less than a crime that defense spending (biasedly called “war industries here) isn’t much higher than any of the others.
The real numbers (for 2005) are below:
$4529 went to Medicare and Medicaid
$3047 went to the Social Security Trust Fund
$2828 went to the military
$2447 went to interest on the public debt
Food stamps: $247.22
Housing assistance: $101
Welfare (Children and families services programs): $63.25
The Tax Breakdown Project provides a more detailed breakdown.
http://www.taxbreakdown.org
To get straight to the numbers for $17430:
http://taxahax.mit.edu/tax?paid=17430
Cheers!