It's the Spending - Stupid!!

Despite what the Obama administration and democrats would lead the public to believe we have a spending problem not a revenue problem. I prefer to use actual facts and not hyperbole like the administration, the democrats and those who have no fiscal responsibility. In fact the data I will present below is actually from the Office of the President of the United States.

So let's examine the facts. In 2001 total revenue collected by the government was just shy of $2 trillion. Spending or cash outlays during 2001 were $1.8 trillion, which yielded a $128 billion surplus. Now let's look at 2008, the most recent year for which we have actual results. Total revenue collected was $2.5 trillion, an increase of $532 billion or 26%. Spending (cash outlays) during 2008 were just under $3 trillion, an increase of 60%, which yielded a deficit of $458 billion.

Clearly, spending grew much faster than revenue between 2001 and 2008 and during that time the government spent $2 trillion more than they collected. While these numbers are depressing, these are all pre-Obama and pre-Obama Care.

For 2009, receipts were $2.1 trillion, a decline of 14% from 2008; however expenditures increased over 18% to $3.5 trillion which yielded a deficit of $1.4 trillion. Unfortunately, the story for 2010 is much the same as 2009. Receipts and outlays were essentially the same as 2009, yielding another deficit of $1.3 trillion. Sad news is that projections for revenue in 2011 are for negligible growth, but over 10% growth in spending. The deficit for 2011 is projected to be $1.6 trillion.

Clearly, this government does not know how to live within their means. The President and democrats suggest we can simply solve the problem by having rich people pay more. So, if you believe this, we would need to collect $1.6 trillion more in taxes which would be an increase of almost 75%.

Let's look at the IRS records to see if this is even possible. In 2008, the last year for which the IRS has disclosed data, taxpayers making more than $200,000 paid $440 billion in taxes nearly half of all the taxes collected in 2008 from just 2.8% of the taxpayers. Total income reported by this group was $1.9 trillion, so in order to cover the gap; we would need to tax this group at 100%. Clearly we can not tax our way out of this problem.

STOP SPENDING!! We the people can not afford the size of government as it exists today.