What Table 1 shows is that in the fiscal year ended September 30, 2012, the federal government took in $2.47 trillion in taxes, spent $3.80 trillion, had a deficit of $1.33 trillion and ended the year with $16.35 trillion in total debt (there is a smaller debt figure which nets out holdings of the Social Security trust fund, but we'll stick with total debt).
In the fiscal cliff negotiations so far, the president is offering to cut $1.2 trillion in spending over the next ten years. Actually, this is $850 billion in direct cuts and the rest in lower inflation adjustments for Social Security and a dubious assumption of lower interest expense from what it otherwise would have been. But let's go with the $1.2 trillion number.
These numbers in trillions of dollars can easily be converted to numbers that could represent the budget of a household by getting rid of a few zeros:
And if this was your household, how comfortable would you feel about having debt on your credit card of $163,500 when your income is $24,700? That cut in your spending of $1,200 out of your total spending of $38,000 is not exactly making a difference in your problem!
This is the fix we have gotten ourselves into. The Obama administration has been the most irresponsible, the most profligate in our history.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/the_gops_budget_problem.html#ixzz2GGbQBBcd
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