Federal Government Spending - vanity

Cobra64

[Cobra64]

Federal tax revenue versus federal spending by departments and agencies.

[Cobra64]

Sorry for the vanity; but I am doing battle with a bunch of flaming libs who think taxpayers are not taxed enough and all government departments are underfunded.

I have an old copy of the amount and per centages of Federal spending as a proportion to Federal revenues, and would appreciate more current data.

Can any FReepers guide me in the right direction?

My goal is to set the libs straight on how much the Feds confiscate from us for worthless programs.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[American Quilter]

I'm sorry I don't have any idea where to look, 'cause that's certainly a worthy project. Good luck with it.

[So Cal Rocket]

Try: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb

[SittinYonder]

No point arguing with them. If they think federal depts are underfunded and we're not paying enough in taxes the only solution to the argument is to apply a baseball liberally to their head and shoulder regions.

[manwiththehands]

Can't help you. I don't know if I would want to know.

President Bush gave a good speech the other day and he talked about using his veto pen, being "responsible" with spending, etc. etc. But NOT ONCE did he mention ANYTHING about spending cuts. Not once.

[RushCrush]

Tell your friends that they are allowed and encouraged to give MORE TAXES to the government! It is easy! I can provide the necessary forms, just send them my way.

[A.Hun]

You can try this...I think it gives breakdowns of funding for the various agencies.

http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/agency.php

[Cobra64]

Thank you!

[A.Hun]

No problem, I hope it helps.

[Cobra64]

I've tried that. Then you can see their pathetic hypocracy.

[mountn man]

Most people who think that "we" don't pay enough taxes, actually think that the rich don't pay their fare share.

During the last time Ross Perot ran for President he pointed out that the federal government spent over $6500 per man woman and child. If you went to irs.org, you could find out how much money was brought in, versus spent.

My expanding on what Perot pointed out, if your lib friends are single they would have to pay at least $6500 in federal taxes (using old stats). If they're married, at least $13,000 in federal taxes. If married with 2 kids $26,000 in federal taxes just to pay their own way.

If your lib friends have kids, and they are public schooled, point out the fact that the government spends over $10,000 a year per child. Now unless they are above middle income, their income taxes don't pay the way for their childs education. In other words someone else is carrying their weight, and they need to put up or shut up.

Now thats just one child, what if they have 2 or 3? What about other government programs? Do they have garbage collection or street plowing? Why does a person living in a $500,000 house have to pay more in property taxes than someone who lives in a $150,000 house in the same town. Does it cost more to plow the streets in the expensive part of town, or does garbage collection cost more there?

Where I'm going with this is, are your lib friends who think "we" should all pay more in taxes, paying "their" fareshare of taxes? Before they complain, they should put up first or shutup.

Oh by the way, I'm a single construction worker. I'm by no means wealthy, but my taxes pay my share and then some. I mention this only because some might think I'm one of the rich not paying my fairshare, complaining about paying too much.

[blueberry12]

I don't know how much money is spent on each individual area, but I read somewhere that more than 50% of the government's budget is spent on welfare. We have things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc... Lots of Americans are living on government paychecks.

The American government is spending more than it should. Whenever you have a budget deficit, you know you are spending too much. The deficit means that America cannot sustain itself. Period. We are not selfsufficient as a whole. Much of the wealth that is visible in our country is an illusion.

The more people we have in this country, the more we have to spend on welfare, and there is an invisible pressure on Americans to cut down immigration, keep abortion legal, and promote samesex marriage. The purpose of all these things is to cut back the American population.

---

The national debt has increased 6.3 trillion dollars since 1987. That represents an average of $331,578,000,000/year deficit for the past 19 years. This means we have been borrowing about 900 million dollars a day everyday for the past 19 years. That's a lot of money. Just to illustrate how much that is, let me mention the cost of a skyscraper. Building a very tall and beautiful skyscraper costs about 600 million dollars.

If every year EVERY single person between the ages of 18 and 65 would pay $2500 IN ADDITION TO PAYING THEIR TAXES, then the national debt would be paid off entirely in 20 years.

The national debt is not the only kind of debt we have. States have debt too. California is nearly bankrupt. Many large cities are drowning in debt as well. This means we are spending too much.

[spinestein]

Congressional Budget Office

http://cbo.gov/


Click on the file called "Historical Budget Data (pdf)"

It's a raw data table but it yields very useful information about how fast the federal budget grows every year (outlays) and how much more tax revenue the feds take in every year.

A particularly interesting bit of information to be found there is just how much money has been raided out of the Social Security from the surplus for the last few decades (7 trillion dollars) and has been "double accounted" for by congress as being in both places at the same time simply because they put a virtual IOU in the Social Security fund every time they swipe money out of it. I'd like to know from Ted Kennedy how he plans on paying that money back.

[Blackirish]

This administration has expanded government by 50% the largest in this countries history.

But who cares?

What does this have to do with the borders?

[spinestein]

I know this is a lot to ask for your friends to pay attention to, but an education in modern economic theory is extremely useful.

At least tell them the difference between the obsolete and discredited ideas of John Maynard Keynes "aggregate demand side" policies advocating wealth redistribution and government micromanagement of the economy and the more modern and empirically valid ideas of "supply side" and free market economics advocated by Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek among others.

"Demand side" economics makes a prediction about income tax revenues that says there is a linear correlation between tax rates and tax revenues; if you raise the tax rate from 10% to 20%, for example you double the government's tax revenue. If you raise it to 50% you get five times as much, and if you raise it to 90% you get nine times the amount of government revenue than at 10%. This has never been shown to actually happen this way in the many times in the past few decades that the tax rates have been constantly tinkered with.

"Supply side" economics says there is a diminishing of increase in tax revenues as tax rates go up until a maximum is reached, at which point tax revenues actually go down with increases in tax rates. This is called the "Laffer Curve", and IT IS SHOWN TO BE EMPERICALLY CORRECT. You can use the data table of tax revenues to show that tax revenues INCREASED during the Reagan years even though the tax rates for the higher tax brackets DECREASED by more than half to 28%. As tax rates are constantly being changed by congress, the revenue data seems to show that raising the marginal tax rate above around 40% brings in less revenue, not more. Ask your friends what they REALLY are trying to accomplish by demanding taxes raised above that level since it brings in less revenue. Are they really concerned about funding the government or are they just interested in punishing people who make more money than they do?



If your friends are liberals, they might be more receptive to watching a 3 part PBS series called "The Commanding Heights" available on DVD. It is a sort of documentary on the history of free market economics versus central planning to the present day (2002) with an emphasis on the relatively recent past including a whole lot about Reagan and Thatcher and the new supply siders. I highly recommend it.

[spinestein]

[This administration has expanded government by 50% the largest in this countries history.]


sigh.

You just pulled that 50% number out of thin air (or else you heard it on CBS or CNN which amounts to the same thing).

1) Congress writes the federal budget, the president only signs it or not.

2) The government has been growing at an average rate of about 5.5 to 6 percent per year during the George W. Bush administration.

3) There have been MANY years in the past few decades when the government grew at a much faster rate than it has during this administration.

4)It's important to the reputation of Free Republic to site sources. http://cbo.gov/budget/historical.pdf

[Bommer]

Sorry for the vanity; but I am doing battle with a bunch of flaming libs who think taxpayers are not taxed enough and all government departments are underfunded

Sorry Cobra, but your little friends are correct. There are Government Departments that are underfunded. The Navy, The Marines, The Army, The Air Force, The Coast Guard and the Dept. of Defense! Agree that we should be taxed higher and get redirect wasteful spending to these departments from the wasteful spending in Dept of Education, HUD, Welfare, Medicare and Dept of Agriculture! Then stand back and watch their heads explode!

[Blackirish]

Congress writes the federal budget, the president only signs it or not.

---

Nobody buys that. It's the prez who gives guidance. If you let congress spend ..like pigs to trough. All these bills were all but written by the Whitehouse.

Farm Bill---Bush

Medicaid Expanshion-----Bush

Energy Bill...that worked great.....Bush

Highway Bill

---

The whole crew had their greasy fingers in this one.

[Blackirish]

The budget has grown nearly 50 percent on his watch, and he is vying to become the most free-spending president ever. To date, he has not asked Congress to rescind even a penny in profligate spending (even Bill Clinton requested more than $8 billion in rescissions, and Ronald Reagan sought upward of $80 billion).

When he drew a line in the sand earlier this year on transportation spending, Congress boldly appropriated an additional $30 billion. He approved the bill, effectively placing a "kick me" sign on his backside


Tony Snow ...the Presidents new spokesman

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/column/tonysnow/2006/03/17/190225.html

[Straight Vermonter]

Tons of info here.