The Federal Budget Deficit

By Howard Kaloogian

My dad was an engineer, and could get into the complex details with the best of them. But he always wanted a one page summary of every large study or difficult problem so that he could grasp the big picture. The Federal budget is such a study, but it too can be explained so the problem is easily understood.

  • Tax revenues to the Federal government: $2,170,000,000,000
  • Spending by the Federal government: $3,820,000,000,000
  • Net DEFICIT this year: $1,650,000,000,000
  • Over time, deficits added up to a debt of: $14,271,000,000,000
  • Spending cuts enacted this year: $38,500,000,000

Those numbers are still hard to fathom so let’s put it in understandable proportions. Remove the last 8 zeros and make it more personal. Consider this is your household budget:

  • Annual family income: $21,700
  • Money the family spends annually: $38,200
  • New credit card debt this year: $16,500
  • Outstanding balance on credit card: $142,710
  • Your children agree to cut spending by: $385

The interest rate that family will have to pay is going up on any new borrowing in the future. Soon, nobody will lend any more money to that family.

The picture is clear: it’s a spending problem. You cannot spend your way out of a deficit; you cannot borrow your way out of debt. You must restrain spending by limiting the federal government to its Constitutional role and grow the economy so that people get back to work and that will mean more tax payers are created. Nothing Obummer and the left have proposed will do either. They just want to spend more, and take more from your family so that you can’t.

No matter how much more of your money Obummer takes, it will never be enough because he will always find more “good” ideas to spend your money upon. He doesn’t believe there is a limit to the government’s reach. Its purpose is to do any “good” thing he can think of, regardless of cost. That means no amount of money taken from you is satisfactory.

Ask your elected “leaders” how much is enough? If not the Constitution they swore an oath to support, then what is the limit?