The
U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few
people know how much money that is so we created a breakdown of federal spending
in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into
perspective:
- U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
- Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
- New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
- National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
- Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of
the budget)
It helps to think about these numbers
in terms that we can relate to. Let's remove
eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget
for the fictitious Jones family.
- Total annual income for the Jones family:
$21,700
- Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
- Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
- Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
- Amount cut from the budget: $385
So in effect last month Congress, or
in this example the Jones family, sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to
cut $385 from its annual budget. What family would cut $385 of spending in order
to solve $16,500 in deficit spending?
It is a start, although hardly a
solution.
Now after years of this, the Jones family has $142,710 of debt
on its credit card (which is the equivalent of the national debt).
You
would think the Jones family would recognize and address this situation, but it
does not. Neither does Congress.
The root of the debt problem is that
the voters typically do not send people to Congress to save money. They are sent
there to bring home the bacon to their own home state.
To effect budget
change, we need to change the job description and give Congress new marching
orders.
It is awfully hard (but not impossible) to reverse course and
tell the government to stop borrowing money from our children and spending it
now.
In effect, what we have is a reverse mortgage on the country. The
problem is that the voters have become addicted to the money. Moreover, the
American voters are still in the denial stage, and do not want to face the
possibility of going into
rehab.
---Author Unknown
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