Where is the money going
I was quite shocked when I started to really look at the official US Budget.
Here is the 10 year plan (page 151)
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Receipts:Â $37 trillion
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Outlays:Â $46 trillion
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Deficit:Â $9 trillion
Um…yeah, doesn’t sound like a good plan to me either. So, debt is going to grow. What happens to interest expense?
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2010 = $188 billion
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2020 = $840 billion
Wow! That is an increase of 446%! If we have 325 million people in 2020 that’s $2,600 per person per year just in interest!
Individual Income Taxes in 2009 are $915 billion but in 2020 will grow to $2,338 billion! That isn’t too bad, only a 255% increase. I can hear the argument that 255% accounts for inflation and other factors…but if that is true why is education only increasing 27%
Here is a stat that I find worrisome. In 1986 19.5% of the tax returns filed paid zero tax or the government paid them (earned income credit) but that number was up to 33% in 2006. More and more people are not paying any taxes at all (See page 2 of this report at the IRS) or being paid by the government. When I say paid by the government I don’t mean received a refund of money they put in. I mean they received an annual check that went above and beyond the money they put in.
I found an enlightening article from the Tax Foundation. I find it hard to believe that a family with income of $50,000 per year doesn’t have ANY taxliability. I have to believe that is a mistake, but I can’t prove it.
But wait….check out page 160 of the US budget… the Earned Income Credit (EIC) is expanding from $85 million to $1.7 billion? They are multiplying the EIC budget by 20. How does that work? Are these low income families going to get more of refundable credit, or are more families not going to be required to pay taxes? How does this math work?
Will we reach a point will there be a voting majority that isn’t paying for any of the programs they are supporting? Is that acceptable to us?