The federal government was expected to spend more than $3.5 trillion in the just-completed 2010 fiscal year!
But despite too-high taxes, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, has pointed out, “Forty-one cents of every dollar the federal government spends we have to borrow from our kids and grandkids.”
Is that responsible government?
While spending and revenue figures from fiscal-year 2010 are not entirely settled yet, Washington expected to take in more than $2.3 trillion – but to spend well over a trillion dollars more than that! (Congress so far has failed to pass a budget resolution for the new fiscal year.)
Somebody is going to have to pay back all that borrowed money someday, and pay interest in the meantime.
Here is where revenue came from in the past fiscal year:
* Individual income taxes were expected to raise more than $1 trillion in 2010.
* Social Security and other payroll taxes were to take in an additional $940 billion.
* Corporate income taxes were to account for $222 billion.
* Excise taxes were supposed to be about $77 billion.
* Customs levies were to total $23 billion.
* Estate and gift taxes were to provide $20 billion.
* Earnings on deposits and “other” sources were expected to produce $38 billion.
Federal tax income from “everything” was expected to be around $2.38 trillion.
But spending was projected to be well over $3.5 trillion, meaning red ink of at least $1.2 trillion. (It appears it will actually be higher than that.)
And our national debt has now risen to $13.6 trillion.
Does that suggest to you that Congress, which has the taxing and spending power of our federal government, is being responsible?
“Mandatory” spending in the just-ended fiscal year came to $2.184 trillion. That was for such things as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and interest on the national debt, plus such things as the Troubled Asset Relief Program and federal “stabilization” efforts.
“Discretionary” spending included $663.7 billion by the Defense Department, $79 billion by the Department of Health and Human Services, $72.5 billion by the Transportation Department, $52.5 billion by the Department of Veterans Affairs, $51.7 billion by the State Department, $47.5 billion by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, $46.7 billion by the Department of Education (although education is not delegated as a federal responsibility by the Constitution, which specifically excludes all things not delegated), $42.7 billion by the Department of Homeland Security, $26.3 billion by the Department of Energy, $26 billion by the Department of Agriculture, $23.9 billion by the Department of Justice, $18.7 billion by NASA, $13.8 billion by the Department of Commerce, $13.3 billion by the Department of Labor, $13.3 billion by the Treasury Department, $12 billion by the Interior Department, $10.5 billion by the Environmental Protection Agency, $9.7 billion by the Social Security Administration, $7 billion by the National Science Foundation, $5.1 billion by the Corps of Engineers, $5 billion by the National Infrastructure Bank, $1.1 billion by the Corporation for National and Community Service, and varied amounts less than a billion dollars each for such things as the Small Business Administration, General Services Administration and other agencies.
With all of the taxing and spending, the national debt is expected to continue to rise even more.
What are we going to do about it?
Few are even trying to answer. What will that do to our economy – and all of us?