Washington's Big Mess IP: 198.199.209.110 Posted on August 12, 2011 at 11:05:23 AM by Pat Lynch
Here's the 2011 federal budget in high level summary: (Taken from the Congressional Budget Office)
· 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 the general public can relate to, so let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Smith family.
· Total annual income for the Smith family: $21,700
· Amount of money the Smith family spent: $38,200
· Amount of new debt added to the family credit card: $16,500
· Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
· Amount cut from the Smith's budget when the problem was acknowledged: $385
So in effect last month Congress (or in this example the Smith family) sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $385 from its annual budget. It's unclear to me what rational family would cut $385 of spending in order to solve for $16,500 in deficit spending.
NOTE: Excerpt taken from First Coast Financial Advisors letter to the President on 8-8-2011. Replies: There have been no replies.
You must register before you can post on this board. You can register here.