If anyone had any doubt the United States is facing a full-scale debt crisis, a look at Washington’s out-of-control spending should wake him up. The bottom line is even if America axed every discretionary program in the budget, we would still be in debt. We are broke. The Dollar Vigilante ran the numbers beginning with:
2010 tax receipts for the US federal government:
- $1.061 trillion – Individual income taxes
- $940 billion – Social Security and other payroll tax
- $222 billion – Corporation income taxes
- $77 billion – Excise taxes
- $23 billion – Customs duties
- $20 billion – Estate and gift taxes
- $22 billion – Deposits of earnings
- $16 billion – Other
…[I]f you exclude Social Security receipts, the total “income” (tax/theft) of the federal government for 2010 was $1.44 trillion.
Here are the Mandatory and Discretionary spending numbers for 2010:
Mandatory spending: $2.184 trillion
- $677.95 billion – Social Security
- $571 billion – Other mandatory programs
- $453 billion – Medicare
- $290 billion – Medicaid
- $164 billion – Interest on National Debt
- $11 billion – Potential disaster costs
Discretionary spending: $1.368 trillion
- $663.7 billion – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
- $78.7 billion – Department of Health and Human Services
- $72.5 billion – Department of Transportation
- $52.5 billion – Department of Veterans Affairs
- $51.7 billion – Department of State and Other International Programs
- $47.5 billion – Department of Housing and Urban Development
- $46.7 billion – Department of Education
- $42.7 billion – Department of Homeland Security
- $26.3 billion – Department of Energy
- $26.0 billion – Department of Agriculture
- $23.9 billion – Department of Justice
- $18.7 billion – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- $13.8 billion – Department of Commerce
- $13.3 billion – Department of Labor
- $13.3 billion – Department of the Treasury
- $12.0 billion – Department of the Interior
- $10.5 billion – Environmental Protection Agency
- $9.7 billion – Social Security Administration
- $7.0 billion – National Science Foundation
- $5.1 billion – Corps of Engineers
- $5.0 billion – National Infrastructure Bank
- $1.1 billion – Corporation for National and Community Service
- $0.7 billion – Small Business Administration
- $0.6 billion – General Services Administration
- $19.8 billion – Other Agencies
- $105 billion – Other
The numbers are pretty simple. The US government had total real tax receipts of $1.44 trillion in 2010. This only pays for 66% of the Mandatory Spending, even if you got rid of 100% of the discretionary spending.
If ever there were an argument for phasing out federal agencies and returning to a Constitutional government, this would be it. Our politicians have neither eyes to see nor ears to hear that we are whistling past the graveyard.
(With apologies to John Derbyshire for the title.)
Just out of the list posted, I counted 9 agencies we could eliminate and be better off for it. I am sure there are many more we don't need. Getting rid of them would save a huge amount ot money. Most are useless and simply make things harder for the rest of us.
It would be nice to have someone like Ron Paul take charge and put things on a Constitutional footing for a change.
I could be the most hated man in the world for it but I could bale us out and put us back in the black with our expenses in four years . No , I'm not talking about maybe , I am talking about an America free from debt . I have said it before , eliminate every cabinet , commission , committee and department on the federal level not specifically called in the limited role of the fed in the constitution , return these to the states , deport every non-citizen back to their own country and bill that country for the cost , Bring all our military home and put them on all our borders , all the money spent on and by them will be spent in our own economy , end all foreign aid , get the U.N. off our soil and quit supporting them , No politician should be paid more than the average wage of his constituents and provided mess halls and barracks while in session , that would also serve to keep them back home where they would do less damage and make it harder to sneak around with lobbyists . Term limits would shorten their time on the government dole and so they would receive much smaller pensions . They should have no benefits for medical and retirement than we the people have . ETC.ETC.ETC.
From what I read of “Huckingfarley” up there, I like his ideas of getting rid of all the baggage(s) in Washington. taking up room, and money for nothing. Breaking America, and the American people is just about as UNAMERICAN as it gets and beyond. And people, if we do not get rid of these thieves and liars soon, like YESTERDAY AND YESTERYEAR, we are truly and indeed DOOMED. It is up to us, the American PEOPLE, to do whatever we have to in order to save America, save her from the ones who are doing their best to ruin what it has taken over 200 years to build, and how many lives, to defend her!!!!?????? What is happening to America is so wrong that there are really no words sufficent to describe this horror show that we have elected to do the jobs we need done. Instead, they have done EVERYTHING BUT WHAT WE NEED OR ASKED THEM TO DO! We now have to DEMAND that they do the job they were HIRED to do, or we have to get rid of them all, starting at the very top! Vote? Somehow it doesn’t seem to have done the trick, so my question is “NOW WHAT?” We have given the Republicans another shot at doing the right thing, and here they go again, lying and cheating and stealing even more from us and laughing in our face as they do it all. Do we wait another two years, or do we do something now and put a stop to their bullcrap? Seems to me that we either get madder than hell, and don’t take it anymore, or we sit down and let them romp all over us and kill every dream we ever had or will have for a future for our country! And, allow the enemy to run over us in the bargin. At this point, I am not sure who or what is the bigger enemy, the terrorists, or the plunderers we put into office to lead us out of the darkness and back into the American Daylight!!! Either way, we are doomed, or as I would say…..scroooooooed!!!!!! Unless we manage to figure out what to do about this mess that only gets bigger and worse as it continues. Come on America, haven’t we had enough?
@huckingfarley seems to have a point. When Reagan fired the Air Traffic Controllers he was taking this approach. There are people today who hate Reagan for this (mainly the families of fired ATC). Imagine how bad it would be if 100x that many people were fired. Whoever did it would be hated forever, at least, by the people who were the parasites on the system, but for those of us who are the payers and stake holders, we would like it very much. The difference is that magical 51% point, when something becomes "majority opinion". We may have passed the point where the parasites become the majority… and the organism dies.
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