Note: Just something I wrote and wanted to share . . . .
Since this is the time of year that we all think about taxes the most, I thought it would be fun to throw out a few facts that you may not know regarding your taxes, our budget, and our debt.
The most recent estimates available report that our current federal deficit stands at approximately $7,800,000,000,000. That’s 7.8
trillion dollars. If this number seems too big to really put into perspective, that figure works out to an average debt of about $26,350 for every man, woman, and child currently living in the United States.
This “per person” amount has risen by over 30% since George Bush took office, when the figure stood at approximately $20,150. Remember how grateful you were when you received that $300 tax rebate check when President Bush took office? Considering the additional amount we all owe as part of the debt, consider it a gift from a loan-shark. Except instead of breaking your legs, we’re selling ourselves off to foreign countries.
According to House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, "Four years ago, the Bush administration inherited a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion. Since then, we have run record deficits of more than $400 billion a year, and Congress has been forced to increase the national debt limit three times. Even worse, the administration and Congress have no real plan to rein in deficits and debt. This threatens our investments in issues important to our communities -- on everything from health care to our national security."
If you think the recent flap in Congress about the repeal of the “Death Tax” has no impact on you, think again. The
Associated Press reports that if the repeal of the “Death Tax” were signed into law, it would add $290 billion on top of the current federal debt over the next ten years. That translates to an additional $1,000 or so in our “per person” share of the debt. In other words we can all (even the poorest of us) chip in to pay for a tax break that only benefited the wealthiest 1.25% of family deaths last year.
But hey, we’re paying it off, right? Nope. Well, at least not since Bill Clinton was in office. Right now we’re only paying off the interest on the current debt we owe, while continuing to run deficits in our annual budget. Last year, the federal government used our tax dollars to pay over
$321 billion (over $1,000 per person living in the U.S.) on just the interest of our current debt. That represents about
14 percent of all federal spending. This means, of course, that 14 cents of every dollar you pay in federal taxes just goes toward interest payments. Not towards roads, schools, national defense, or healthcare. If somehow the federal debt magically disappeared tomorrow, we could cut everyone’s taxes by 10 percent across the board and still have over $10 billion to put toward whatever we wished.
Keep these fun facts in mind the next time you hear someone from either side of the aisle talk about fiscal discipline.
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