Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) computed the day of the year when all the costs of government at all levels are paid for. ATR calls it Cost Of Government Day. This year, that day fell on August 12, 2009. It has taken from January 1st until now to pay for all the costs of federal, state, and local government, plus the regulatory burdens imposed by the government. This year's Cost Of Government Day was almost a full month later than it was in 2008. The biggest reason for the change was the recession, which sparked a massive Keynesian government spending spree (TARP, stimulus, etc). Another reason is the unchecked growth of unfunded entitlement liabilities (Medicare, Social Security, etc).
This year, the cost of government consumed 61.34% of national income. Working people toil 224 days of the year to pay for their government. You can view the Cost Of Government Day report for 2009 here. It makes for some very interesting and disturbing reading.
Put in it's simplest terms, this means that we are becoming slaves to incremental government tyranny. ObamaCare and Cap-and-Trade are some of the next steps in that planned process.
The breakdown of Cost Of Government Day is as follows:
- We work 111 days to pay for federal spending.
- We work 49 days for state and local spending.
- We work 42 days for federal regulations.
- We work 23 days for state and local regulations.
Cost Of Government Day varies from state to state, of course, because each state and locality has a differing burden. The state with the least burden (most free) in 2009 was Alaska (where that radical Sarah Palin governed. No wonder liberals hate her). Predictably, the states with the highest government burdens (least free) were liberal states, with Connecticut being the highest, followed by New Jersey, New York, and California. Liberals LOVE to give their hard-earned money to the government (well, actually, they love to give other people's hard-earned money to the government). Liberals exhibit a plantation mentality, with the government playing the role of master, and the liberals playing the happy slaves whose every need is met by Massuh (at the price of their liberty and free choice). This somehow makes sense to them, though I can never understand WHY it makes sense to them. I run from it like I'm headed for the Underground Railroad.
When you're working 7-8 months per year just to pay off the government burdens, it's only natural that you will be poorer than you'd be otherwise, but somehow liberals can never figure this out either. They are always clamoring for more and more government spending, taxation, and regulation. It's their version of Stockholm Syndrome. They loves them some Massuh. Massuh is SO very good and kind. Massuh is SO very smart.
In an irony so thick you could cut it with a knife, liberals, the willing slaves, call people "racists" when they resist the big government takeovers being planned by President Barack Obama. They actually think it's racist to want to be free from government tyranny, all because Obama's skin is black. They can't see past that singular, irrelevant fact. At this point, crying racism is nothing more than the liberal Pavlovian response to freedom. They can't help it, and they don't understand what the rest of us are so upset about. They don't get that most people don't want to become wards of the state. They are completely baffled when people don't want the government to takeover every aspect of their lives, so they use "racist" as a sort of intellectual firewall. Go figure.
Back to the Cost Of Government Day report. One of the many myths the report destroys is the idea that Obama's stimulus package was actually an economic stimulus package. It wasn't. It was mostly just a bunch of big government appropriations spending under the guise of stimulus, along with spending to prop up, guess who? – the government ("never let a crisis go to waste"). Here's the breakdown of spending in the alleged stimulus package:
- $90 billion for “State Fiscal Relief;”
- $71.3 billion for the Department of Labor, Health and
Human Services and Education (including $16.6 billion for
Student Financial Assistance, $13 billion for Education for
the Disadvantaged, $12.2 billion for Special Education and
$9.7 billion for National Institutes of Health);
- $61.1 billion for Transportation, Urban Development and
Housing (including $27.5 billion for Highway
Construction);
- $57.3 billion for Assistance for Unemployed Workers and
Struggling Families (including 39.2 billion for
Unemployment Compensation);
- $53.6 billion for the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund;
- $50.8 billion for Energy and Water (including $16.8 billion
for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy);
- $26.4 billion for Agriculture, Rural Development and Food
and Drug Administration (including $20 billion for the
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program);
- $25.1 billion for Health Insurance Assistance;
- $20.8 billion for Health Information Technology;
- $15.8 billion on Commerce, Justice and Science (including
$4.7 billion on the Broadband Technology Opportunities
Program);
- $10.6 billion on Interior and Environment (including Clean
Water and DrinkingWater State Revolving Funds);
- $7.9 billion on Defense and Homeland Security;
- $6.7 billion on Financial Services and General Government
(including $5.4 billion on the Federal Buildings Fund);
- $4.3 billion on Military Construction and Veteran Affairs.
Another interesting item in the report is how the tax burden of the various states affects the population and prosperity of those states. The report states that between 1997 and 2007, the ten states with the highest tax burdens lost 3 million citizens and $82 billion in income. During the same period, over 2.6 million people moved to the states with no income tax, bringing in about $98.5 billion in income. Hmmm. Those no income tax states must be racist.
Maybe the most important thing to remember about President Obama's first year in office is this – in 2009, taxpayers are confronted with a federal budget that raises spending to over $9,000 for every man, woman and child in America—forever. That's $36,000 for a family of four. EVERY YEAR. And our President has only just begun to "change" America. Change into what, I shudder to think.
In conclusion, keep going to those Tea Parties and townhall meetings. Keep telling your Congressperson what you think. The only ones who can stop this tyrannical government (and it started long before Obama arrived on the scene) is we, the people. Ignore all the name-calling you endure from the leftist slaves and their pet slave media. They are the problem. You are the solution.
{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
howcum no mention of military expenditures? When do we start recieving cheap oil from Iraq?
this from Friends Committee on National Legislation…..
How Much of Your 2008 Income Taxes Pay for War?
Updated: 4/14/2009 Posted: 3/26/2009
War spending has continued steady and high. But we don't know exactly how high.
Ordinarily, FCNL produces an annual analysis of spending on war and other priorities before income tax returns are due in April. This year, because of the way the budget proposals were introduced — in outline form only — we've had to estimate based on February 2008 figures.
At that time, most spending decisions for FY2008 had been made and the Office of Management and Budget had estimated spending for the remaining 9 months of the federal fiscal year.
Based on that estimate, we calculate that 43.4 percent of your 2008 tax dollars were spent on the military, both for current military programs and past military spending.
29.8 percent is the portion estimated to be spent on current military programs — the Pentagon, nuclear weapons, foreign military training and assistance.
13.6 percent is the portion estimated to be spent on the cost of past wars and military spending — a calculated percentage of the interest on the federal debt, nuclear weapons clean-up, support for veterans and related costs.
Walter, why don't you say anything about President Obama's war in Afghanistan? Are we paying anything to keep that one going? Has he sent more and more troops there? Well sure he has because he took it over as his war as soon as the coronation took place.
So you will know the woman who was my foster daughter back in the preceding millenium spent two years in Kuwait with the Army National Guard under Bush and has been back in the states about 14 months since that ended and she is headed back to Afghanistan in December. She is 47 years old and the mother of a 10 year old boy and going to fight President Obama's war for him. I didn't know whether you knew about him taking over that as his war or if you knew that troops were still going over there.
That woman only lived with us one year, 1980 to 1981 but still considers me har dad as she never really had one. One would think that she would have served about all her time for Bush but it doesn't seem to count.
walter,
The difference in the government burden between this year and last was not caused by the wars, but I give the readers enough credit to understand that when I talk about federal spending, war is included.
About oil from Iraq, why would it be any cheaper than oil from anywhere else ?
Uh, Roy, Afghanistan would be the place that based the Taliban(though, King will tell you that Bush defeated them there) and Al-Qaeda. As for more troops, Obama is just following Petraeus's counterinsurgency handbook.
Pulitzer Prize winning economist Paul Krugman remarked this past weekend that we more than likely avoided a 2nd great depression with Obama's actions and he is very optimistic about the economy.
Krugman has been debunked, Tbomb.
This holiday will be pushed far into autumn quite soon if Obama is able to push much of his agenda through. By 2012, we'll probably be celebrating it in the summer of the year following.
from the story……"Based on that estimate, we calculate that 43.4 percent of your 2008 tax dollars were spent on the military, both for current military programs and past military spending." So what do you think King….How Much of Your 2009 Income Taxes Pay for military because of Obama's spending? From 43.4% in 2008 to what, maybe 43.2%?
why Iraqi oil would be cheaper?……probably because of the same reasons ANWR oil would be cheaper…..it wouldn't
Alaskan residents get a "kickback" from the oil companies. Anybody remember how much that is? Is that per person or per family?
King….
FREEDOM ISN'T FREE!!
I'm sure the government would be perfectly happy to refund your money if you didn't use anything that rest of the country paid for.
Roads.
Water, Sewer, Gas, electric, and telephone lines. (all subsidized by the government or completely owned)
Parks.
Stadiums.
Schools (you are probably anti public school anyway, but oh wait, charters are funded by taxes too except you have no voting right on that one)
Cleaning up toxic rivers that are "too burdensome" for the companies that polluted them.
Police (we want em, but nobody wants to pay for them)
Fire
EMS
National Guard
National Defense as a whole
Oh wait, you always blame welfare for all the high taxes right. "It's the bulk of the tax burden." Yep, let's take another half a trillion dollars that goes to companies (I mean those evil welfare people do consume right?) and let people keep that, let's see how much taking that amount of money off the table benefits the economy as a whole.
But you don't use welfare do you? No medicare, no medicaid, no food stamps, free lunch program, you certainly never use your Golden Buckeye card (maybe you aren't an old enough coot yet). Nope you worked hard to make your money and you deserve to keep it. It's not like the nasty Government has ever given you anything or done anything for you to make your life easier. They just want to keep taking your money, for things that you, me and the people before us wanted and found necessary.
larry has a funny…."Krugman has been debunked"….funny stuff, thanks.
King, Social Security is still running a surplus…..so you're wrong in labeling it as a contributor to deficits.
Were we becoming "slaves to tyrannical government" during Bush's doubling of the national debt in 8 years? If so, why no Tea Parties? If so, why no conservative concern, or rage, during that period?
If the stimulus wasn't a stimulus at all, how did the recession flatten out recently, per the Federal Reserve's statement yesterday? Accident? Coincidence?
"They actually think it's racist to want to be free from government tyranny, all because Obama's skin is black. They can't see past that singular, irrelevant fact. At this point, crying racism is nothing more than the liberal Pavlovian response to freedom. They can't help it, and they don't understand what the rest of us are so upset about. They don't get that most people don't want to become wards of the state. They are completely baffled when people don't want the government to takeover every aspect of their lives, so they use "racist" as a sort of intellectual firewall."
What I'm "baffled" about is….where in the hell was all this moaning, whining and hysteria during the last 8 years? Or is it that those who simply detest the "government tyranny" of spending……just woke up from an 8 year slumber?
Not persuasive.
The economy is rebounding naturally and in spite of Master's bungling, Reverend. It's time to cancel the 80 percent of the Obama porkulus that hasn't been spent yet.
Rev, of course you know that King and I agree on many things so let me say that when he mentions having his racist attitude used to complain about why he thinks as he does he doesn't like it. We believe that we are allowed to be in the 53% of people that Rasmussen says today just don't think Obama is doing so well and the color of his skin doesn't account for most of the feeling.
I am so tired of being called racist ever since I refused to vote for Obama that I wonder why I even bother to say that I wanted him to be successful in every way that didn't include socialist thinking. However, I had nothing to do with him continuing Bush policies in buying out businesses, pushing the stimulus bill through without debate at all, C4C is a part of his doing, and now he is pushing the very unpopular movement toward socialist socialized medicine. No sir, I did nothing to push him there and I don't believe he has pushed these things because of his race. I keep trying to not see him as, at least, part black. It is hard to do when I am constantly told that it is his race that makes me not like him.
G – Mann, you made a fine list of government supplied things but until you got to the very bottom you listed things that are supplied, mostly, by state and local governments. They must do wonderful work since they manage to do so much with so much less than the national people. They do get some small infusions from the Congress but very little compared to what they spend themselves.
After King was good enough to point out how long we pay to get past the national sharing of our wealth you make it sound like the shorter time to state and local governments isn't at all involved.
After promising to get out of Iraq, I think that Obama had a number of people who voted for him convinced that he planned to extricate us from the Middle Eastern war and immediately he let us know that as of the time he took over, Afghanistan was his war to win or lose. Don't blame Petraeus for what Obama has done there. He took the chance and allowed escalation on his own. Petraeus may have asked for more but unless he intended to win there he should have refused and pulled the troops out of there, also.
Hey, I am in support of what Obama has done in Afghanistan up to now but what he has done has made it "his" war and he better win it or else what will people think. I just don't like seeing people calling it Bush's war when in the next breath they bad mouth him for taking his eye off Afghanistan. It is Obama's war now and there is no way to blame what happens in the next 6 months on Bush, logically.
The most used infrastructure is Federally funded highways, railways, and interstate waterways. The majority of all major utility projects are Federally funded (what you people call pork). How many major bridges are built not using Federal Funds?
It's ok that you don't understand the way the money filters back into the states coffers. And it's ok that you don't realize that as the US government cuts taxes the states and cities raise them. (Why? because the Federal taxes fund most everything we do on the local level)
TBomb says, "Uh, Roy, Afghanistan would be the place that based the Taliban(though, King will tell you that Bush defeated them there)"
Uh, TBomb, is the Taliban running Afghanistan now, as they were before Bush invaded ? I know how you hate it when I state the facts, but…
TBomb says, "Pulitzer Prize winning economist Paul Krugman remarked this past weekend that we more than likely avoided a 2nd great depression with Obama's actions"
Krugman is being too modest. I'm pretty sure that Obama has saved the entire solar system, if not the galaxy. Did Krugman bother to say how Obama saved the world ? Was it the, lol, stimulus package that did it ?
walter responds, "why Iraqi oil would be cheaper?……probably because of the same reasons ANWR oil would be cheaper…..it wouldn't"
But ANWR profits would be American profits instead of say, Saudi Arabian or Iraqi profits. Even you should be able to see the difference.
G-Mann,
I know freedom isn't free, but freedom isn't supposed to bankrupt the country either. I have no problem paying for defense, roads, sewers, or even public schools, but the vast majority of the federal budget goes for other things. And even in the legitimate areas government operates, the amount of waste is staggering. The public schools cost far more than equivalent private schools, for instance.
When am I allowed to start complaining about how much government costs ? Am I to wait until the Cost Of Government Day is December 10th, or what ?
Mr. roysoldboy,
I agree with most of what you say. Obama and the Democrats continue to be a disappointment. The people have overwhelmingly rejected the policies of the Bush administration and their Congressional toadies. Yet they retain some of the worst of Bush's policies. It is indeed now Obama's war.
King sez…."But ANWR profits would be American profits……." So when I pay $2.55/gal it would feel like I'm only paying $2.45/gal? Huh?
King sez…."The public schools cost far more than equivalent private schools, for instance." So going to Akron U. would be far more expensive that going to Case Western? You learn something new everyday here.
No, walter. ANWR profits would employ more American workers and the profits wouldn't go overseas. We used to value that here.
Regarding the schools, you aren't counting the federal funding, which is provided by the taxpayers. Here's a comparison of D.C. schools:
"We're often told that public schools are underfunded. In the District, the spending figure cited most commonly is $8,322 per child, but total spending is close to $25,000 per child — on par with tuition at Sidwell Friends, the private school Chelsea Clinton attended in the 1990s.
What accounts for the nearly threefold difference in these numbers? The commonly cited figure counts only part of the local operating budget. To calculate total spending, we have to add up all sources of funding for education from kindergarten through 12th grade, excluding spending on charter schools and higher education. For the current school year, the local operating budget is $831 million, including relevant expenses such as the teacher retirement fund. The capital budget is $218 million. The District receives about $85.5 million in federal funding. And the D.C. Council contributes an extra $81 million. Divide all that by the 49,422 students enrolled (for the 2007-08 year) and you end up with about $24,600 per child.
For comparison, total per pupil spending at D.C. area private schools — among the most upscale in the nation — averages about $10,000 less. For most private schools, the difference is even greater."
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9319
like I said……the price of gas will remain the same
You're right and I'm wrong…..the cost of an education at Akron U. is MUCH greater than that at Case Western. I apologize for thinking anything different.
Yes, walter, I know the price of gas will remain the same. That was my point.
Compare the cost of Akron's Catholic elementary and high schools to Akron's public schools.
why not go all the way and compare home schoolers to Akron public schools
King…..what do you think….the cost of an engineering degree from Akron U is maybe 10 times more expensive than one from Case Western Reserve?
King, I would agree with you……you would realize a cost savings if you fired all the Akron Public Scools teachers and replaced them with nuns.
tory could get a job in the skool cafeteria
Well, Harvard is cheaper than Akron U last I heard (no tuition at all at Harvard. Endowments pay for it), but that is also completely beside the point, like your posts about Case.
Charter schools are mostly cheaper than public schools too. They don't use nuns. Now what ?
Case Western is a private skool…..Akron U. is public skool…..why is it beside the point?
no tuition at Harvard? Then what's this story all about?…….http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jun/23/harvard-student-loans
no, wally, King said the cost of "equivalent schools"… work on your reading comprehension
Your link didn't work, walt.
Double-checked the Harvard tuition. Anyone whose family makes $60,000 or less goes for free. That's a lot cheaper than Akron U.
http://www.piqe.org/Assets/Home/Harvard.htm
And yes, it's beside the point. Catholic and charter schools cost less than public schools. I'm talking high school and elementary.
King sez….."Anyone whose family makes $60,000 or less goes for free."
from the 2004 piqe website….."If you know of a family earning less than $60,000 a year with an honor student graduating from high school soon, Harvard University wants to pay the tuition."
not quite anyone….just honor students…..we're talking 2004 here
I couldn't get my link to work either. What did work is c&p into the google search and then click on the story
Wadsworth public schools spend $5,689 per student. The tuition at Our Lady of the Elms is $8800. Just saying.
The average Catholic high school costs about $6,900 per year.
The average public high school costs over $9,800 per year, not counting all the hidden costs I mentioned before.
And the Catholic schools do better at teaching the kids.
Just saying.
But thanks for pointing out that not just anyone can get into Harvard. What a newsflash that was.
King sez….."Well, Harvard is cheaper than Akron U last I heard (no tuition at all at Harvard. Endowments pay for it),…."
outright false
King sez….."Anyone whose family makes $60,000 or less goes for free."
I can only read what you write
King sez…."The public schools cost far more than equivalent private schools, for instance."
so that has morphed into public high schools cost more than Catholic high schools
King, all I'm trying to do is keep your sycophants from taking the information you give them and going out and embarrasing themselves.
and look at the thanks I get
rainman, I can't believe I waste my time talking to you. You are so desperate to prove me wrong about something or anything that I actually feel sorry for you.
My remark about public high schools costing more than Catholic high schools was in response to you saying Wadsworth was cheaper than the Elms. You KNOW that, but your pathology still forces you to misrepresent my words, just as your pathology forced you to pretend like I got something wrong because I didn't say Harvard was offering free tuition only to honor students in 2004. You have profound honesty issues.
The only thing I had wrong initially was that Harvard's free tuition isn't for everyone, it's only for people making $60,000 or less. I corrected that myself in my next post after I double-checked. So sue me.
Later.