$2,500,000,000,000 per year

[Will Robinson]

That's right! Two and a half Trillion dollars is how much the federal government takes in this year in tax revenue!
Now in the spirit of free market and improving ones quality of life and following a lead from the British I believe we could take money and the power that goes with it and outsource the management of this country to a non-profit organization.

The Brits took the Kings control away from him, gave him a nice castle or three and let him breed all the future little royal figureheads he could out of his shallow gene pool.
Why not bring America into the current century and just give all those politicians their own little castles and they can keep Washington D.C. as their own royal village. We'll let them come out and wave that fake wave a smile their fake little smiles at all sorts of public festivities just like the Queen and her brood do across the pond.
But for crying out loud people! $2,500,000,000,000!!!
That's way too much money to pay for the quality of service we are getting from that fraternity of gangsters we call Congress!
It's like buying your family tickets on a first class luxury cruise ship and then some doofus named Gilligan shows up at the marina with an old broken down fishing boat and says \"All aboard ya'll!\"

Sorry to rant, but having just sent them my yearly contribution and then reading that 2.5 trillion annual revenue figure has got me wondering WTF?!?!

[Zuruck]

Good point Will, but our kings change the rules daily...and they are changing them to make sure we (the facking citizens) don't have that kind of power. I'm not sure when this monster was created but at the current point in time...there is no alternative. Ever wonder who made it a two party system? It's all a system of legacy, once you make it in you certainly don't want to be left with the only one without a chair when the music stops.

[Behemoth]

Too much under the table politicking.

[Duper]

You guys really need to get involved inlocal politics and try balancing a city budget sometime. Or listen to your state's legislative seeesions before you start making statements of \"understanding\".

Granted, there is a lot of palm greasing, but without those tax dollars, there would be no FIMA, or SSA or NASA or any kinda research.

[Behemoth]

You guys really need to get involved inlocal politics and try balancing a city budget sometime. Or listen to your state's legislative seeesions before you start making statements of "understanding".

Granted, there is a lot of palm greasing, but without those tax dollars, there would be no FIMA, or SSA or NASA or any kinda research.

Research is all well and fine duper, but don't you believe research like that should be privately funded?

And if not, for what reasons?

Really all in all for 2.5 trillion dollars to be taken in every year is astonishing to say the least.

Somehow i can't see that turning up in the belly's of starving babies, Just warfare building material.

I could be wrong.

[Will Robinson]

Granted, there is a lot of palm greasing, but without those tax dollars, there would be no FIMA, or SSA or NASA or any kinda research.

I'm not complaining that they collect taxes, I'm saying the value we get in return is so low it's criminal. It's so bad that we could probably run two United States of America with the revenue. If our government was a board of directors of a publicly held company they would all be brought up on charges that make the Enron group look like saints!

[ccb056]

$2.5 trillion per year in revenue.

Lets see, we are $9 trillion in debt; so

If you stop all government funded programs, including the war; license everything out to the private sector, and tax the people at the same rate for the next 3 years....

We will have paid off the national debt.


Or, we could pull a USSR and rename our country, making all debts null and void.

[Testiculese]

The interest goes up faster than we can keep up.

[Ford Prefect]

My initial reaction was that you were just whining about having to pay your taxes but you know after looking around a little you have a point Will. In 2004-2005 the Canadian Federal spending was 210 billion which is about 1/10 that of the U.S. and we have 1/10 the population so on the surface that seems balanced but for that we get universal health care which is about 17 to 20% of that figure. Plus I just think we get more period from our government than you do down south.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_f ... ding,_2004
Since 2004-5 there have been tax reductions and balanced budgets however I think that total collections and expenditures have risen as well.
For the last decade or more the Federal government has deliberately underestimated it's revenues and so has run large surpluses to the budget at least some of which has been used to pay down the debt This has resulted in a steadily falling percentage of the budget being used to pay for past programs.
This is a trap that I think you are falling into in the U.S. As your debt rises more and more of your tax load goes to pay for things you have already consumed so the return for your taxes gets worse and worse. Canada turned that situation around in the 1980's and though it was painful at the time (the GST was introduced) it is paying large dividends today.
If you are going to spend $500 billion a year on ill advised military adventures you are going to have to pay the taxes to cover it now or you and your children will be getting less and less in return for your tax dollars as the years go on. For example in the year I posted 34 billion out of 210 billion was spent on debt payments and that is considered a low percentage of the budget. That is more than was spent on old age security and minimum income support. (27 billion) .
You may be complaining now Will but I don't see it getting any better.

[Hostile]

And it's really not gonna get any better when we annex Canada.

[WillyP]

Yeah it will, the number of Americans who get decent healthcare coverage will rise... to 10%

[Ford Prefect]

Nonsense Hostile, when you annex Canada you will get to take over our large budget surpluses. Hmm... What would 5 billion buy the U.S. Maybe a tank or one fighter jet.
Never mind. Your right it won't get any better.

[FunkyStickman]

I almost hate to think about the amount of money that's getting spent in the U.S. right now...

Sadly, no matter how high they jack the tax rates up, they'll find a way to waste it.

As much as I hate to say it, the only way out of this death spiral is to severely cut government programs, and that's not going to happen as long as Congress-people keep getting voted in by millions of Americans who rely on the government for an excuse to do nothing all day, and get paid for it.

In a purely financial sense, a business can't afford to pay for employees/equipment that not only don't contribute, they cause output everywhere else to drop as well.

The question is, are we willing to let the country fall apart so that we can not feel guilty about taking care of the poor? I'm all for caring for the needy, but the definition of \"needy\" should be fixed. Where do we draw the line? How much can we really afford? I live in New Orleans. I've seen the best and the worst all at the same time.

And those of you who think that we should keep shelling out money as long as people will take it, the country be dammned... that's fine, but you're a moron. If I wanted to live in a socialist hellhole, I'd move to one.

[Ford Prefect]

Speaking of Socialist Hell. Which country has the lowest rate of Income and social services taxes on a single individual?



Ireland. That hot bed of rugged individualism of course with a rate of 23.1%
The highest...Belgium at 55.4%

Really Funkystickman don't blame the poor for your tax rate blame your military spending.

[Lothar]

don't blame the poor for your tax rate blame your military spending.

The problem isn't either "the poor" or "the military". The problem is the way the government just doles out money to anybody and everybody like there's no tomorrow. IIRC well over 50% of government spending is in handouts, most of which doesn't even go to poor people who have legitimate claim to "needing" the help.

[Will Robinson]

Exactly Lothar, last time I saw the figures 24 cents of every dollar collected in tax revenue that was budgeted for welfare expenses only 24 cents actually made it to the recipient, 76 cents of every dollar was used up internally by the bureaucracy.

If I tried to claim a 76% administration cost on my gross income before figuring my taxable income the government would be crawling up my butt with a magnifying glass looking for the hidden income!
Of course if I ran a company's 401K plan by taking the employees contributions and my matching contributions and instead of investing it I spent it on whatever and then put IOU's in a ledger and then in the annual profit and loss statement I even counted that debt as an asset to balance my books I'd be put in jail for major fraud and theft!
Well that is exactly how the government has been keeping the books on Social Security and the press has the balls to let politicians campaign talking about the missing money as if it was really there and how they would 'put it in a lockbox'....
Heh!

[Ford Prefect]

Lothar-What do you define as a \"handout\"? Just curious.

Just looked up some figures. It appears that Social Security represents about 24% of federal spending. That's a Wikipedia number so may not be accurate.

According to this chart http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/39894058/ of the 2,800B budget only 983B is discretionary spending. That is, renewed every year by the current administration. Of that, 632B is military. Doing a little math (and having a little faith in the figures of others) it would seem that makes military spending 23% of the total budget. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are non-discretionary and are not part of the 983B. Since only a small portion of Social Security goes to the \"poor\" you can see how that welfare family down the block is not your biggest cash drain. At least not on your federal taxes.

Here is a chart by the same source on the total budget. I note they peg the budget total at 2,800B which is 300B more than Will's figure. Note that by this chart military spending at 683B exceeds Social Security spending at 586B so my previous numbers disagree by a couple of percent.
http://thebudgetgraph.com/forums/index.php?topic=6.0

[FunkyStickman]

don't blame the poor for your tax rate blame your military spending.

The problem isn't either "the poor" or "the military". The problem is the way the government just doles out money to anybody and everybody like there's no tomorrow. IIRC well over 50% of government spending is in handouts, most of which doesn't even go to poor people who have legitimate claim to "needing" the help.

That was exactly my point, Lothar... most of the people who get government aid don't really need it. Thus we need to redefine what "needy" is. In New Orleans, I see people every day who are living 100% off the government, could work but won't, but they drive cars with $4000 sets of wheels. Obviously they're not hurting that bad. Those of us who are paying taxes are supporting these jerks.

It would be awesome if there were a way to designate where your money goes when you pay taxes.... I know that's a pipe dream, but it would be interesting to see what get funded and what doesn't. Think of it as "voting with your dollars!"

This military here is going through major cutbacks as well... they're shutting down several bases around the country. Also, the military force is a fraction of the size it was during WWII, and we can still defend the country with those few people because of advancements in technology. I'd still agree there's a lot of waste there that could be cut... but that doesn't include removing troops on the ground.

[Will Robinson]

Regardless of how much of the budget should go to military and how much should go to welfare etc., when they say we need X amount for 'Program A' and then only 24% of the money raised for program A actually makes it into the hands of the planned recipients you begin to see the biggest drain on our tax dollar isn't any one part of the budget, it is the management team in charge of spending it!

[Ford Prefect]

Funkystickman:

his military here is going through major cutbacks as well... they're shutting down several bases around the country.

Have a look at that chart. The only red numbers (cuts in funding) are on the right hand side of the chart.
If you see someone with $4000 wheels on their car collecting welfare then the odds are good you are seeing fraud. Report it. Mind you that will require bureaucrats to check into the allegation and that will do nothing to decrease the 76% Will talks about.
By the way Will where did you get your figures?
Also are U.S. welfare plans funded federally or by the States?

[Will Robinson]

There is some kind of grant thing that the feds use to fund the states welfare programs. I remember because in the '90's there was some kind of reform thing going on where the feds would have less input on the regulation of welfare and in return they wanted to cut their share of it..
So long story short the feds and the state pay. It's so weird sometimes because the states will sometimes have to send a part of the tax they raise for some program to Washington and then the money gets sent back to the states to fund the program usually after the feds reapportion the amount so some states get more than they put in and some get less. then the feds add to the funds with all sorts of stipulations on how the program will be applied etc.
They do this with taxes collected to build roads and infrastructure, not sure if they play that game with welfare or not but they probably do.

As for the .24 cents of each dollar figure. It was something that really stuck in my mind when I heard it a long time ago, probably early eighties. I don't expect they have gotten any more responsible in their spending since then. Sorry I can't tell you where to find it other than the government office of accounting probably has those figures posted in a report but I'm too lazy to dig for it right now.

[woodchip]

A trillion here, a trillion there. Pretty soon you will be talking real money.

[Ford Prefect]

A trillion here, a trillion there. Pretty soon you will be talking real money.

So true. Remember when having a million dollars meant you had made it big? Now my 50 year old house on a 66 X 123 lot is worth $600,000. Canadian mind you.

The welfare funding in Canada works much the same. Some of the standards and payment levels are set by the various provinces and the money comes from the Feds. What they do here is make a lump sum transfer payment to each province that is supposed to cover medicare, post secondary education, welfare... a whole host of programs mandated by the feds. The province uses the money as they will but have to keep their programs up to certain standards.
This is cause for endless debates about what level of government is responsible for what part of what program.

[fliptw]

A major issue with money and the US congress is that any and all bills can authorize money to be spent. You stick money in for free golf clubs for a Congressman's sports club in a bill about... lets say border security.

the shinagians in the simpson's episode \"Lisa goes to Washington\" is pretty accurate.

Funny aside, when I check Firefox's suggestions for the proper spelling of shinagians Washingtonian comes up...

[Mobius]

Will, don't forget the Trillion dollars Dumbya has stolen from your country, just to ensure several thousand more Americans got killed by arabs.

[Will Robinson]

Will, don't forget the Trillion dollars Dumbya has stolen from your country, just to ensure several thousand more Americans got killed by arabs.

You know I actually listened to him explain why he wanted to spend that money in fact he went into quite a bit of detail of why he thought it was necessary and your interpretation of his motives doesn't jibe with reality

Why is it that most people who are so outspoken about opposing the war seem to depend solely on exaggerations and total fiction when they get down to dishing out the blame? It kind of puts a big disclaimer right across their whole argument from the opening.
But yea Mobius he did spend too much for the quality of the management he delivered I'll agree with you in that sense. If I knew what he was going to do from the start I would have said don't bother, just bomb the crap out of them from a safe distance and pretend to care like the last guy and then maybe your wife could be anointed too!

[Sirius]

Research is all well and fine duper, but don't you believe research like that should be privately funded?

And if not, for what reasons?

I'm not Duper, but private funding is pretty difficult to come by - because the average person (or corporate exec or what-have-you) doesn't like donating money.

When it comes to stuff like ... well, NASA, it basically is donating money because there are unlikely to be any significant returns in the short term. The only way I can see it paying off is if their space exploration stuff nets us means of getting new resources on a scale we have never seen before. And that could be a couple hundred years off...

[Behemoth]

Research is all well and fine duper, but don't you believe research like that should be privately funded?

And if not, for what reasons?

I'm not Duper, but private funding is pretty difficult to come by - because the average person (or corporate exec or what-have-you) doesn't like donating money.

When it comes to stuff like ... well, NASA, it basically is donating money because there are unlikely to be any significant returns in the short term. The only way I can see it paying off is if their space exploration stuff nets us means of getting new resources on a scale we have never seen before. And that could be a couple hundred years off...

So until then they can keep lining their pockets, correct?