Posted on 12/28/2012 9:25:03 PM PST by Hojczyk
From my inbox, submitted without comment.
* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000
Lets now remove 8 zeros and pretend its a household budget:
* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts so far: $38.50
Make sense now?
Amount raised by increasing the tax rate on those making more than $250,000? About $40 to $45 billion a year.
or, moving those decimals:
Amount raised by making the family bread winner work additional hours to deal with the shortfall? About $40 to $45.
If we had an honest press (I know, dream on) it would be clear to all, including the “no-information” voters, that what we have is a spending problem, NOT a revenue problem.
If you are sitting on your butt drawing welfare checks to live on, it don’t make a difference.
I thought the national debt was upwards of 16 trillion.
US debt limit personified: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li0no7O9zmE
I have heard the guys on Red Eye Radio using this example for awhile.
:
The cool thing is it moves up so fast that once you’ve typed in a number it’s already a couple of million off!
(But you’re right, it’s closer to 16 trillion than it is to 14 trillion - which makes the numbers in the article that much worse).
It is closer to 18 trillion than it is to 14 trillion. It is more than 16.2 trillion.
$38.5 billion / 100 million = $385.
pingerooni!
$400 to $450 if you move decimal point 8 places. He screwed up the last example.
Still a pittance compared to the debts.
Ah yes, you’re exactly right (and I did work off his budget cut number rather than adjusting those values myself) — the fact-checking department at FR is a wonder to behold! Thanks for the correction (and the absence of snarkiness in pointing it out).
As you suggested, it really is an indication of how screwed we are when that item on the example could be off by a full power of ten and the corrected version *still* shows how bad a shape we’re in.
I don’t think anybody in their right mind can claim that Obummer and his crew are “in over their heads” or “confused” or “incompetent” about a budget this bad. The numbers are just too hideous to gloss over with claims of good intentions.
We are being led to slaughter, people.
Well, the family can always fire up the Epson and take a few thousand pictures of their last hundred dollar bill.
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