Great news fellow Americans, Tax Freedom Day is May 10, or 130 days into the calendar year. We as a nation will pay an estimated 3.3 trillion in federal taxes & 1.6 trillion in state and local taxes for a total of 5 trillion dollars or 31% of the nation’s income. This figure wills annual federal borrowing which represents future taxes owed. Americans will collectively spend more on taxes in 2016 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined. For those of you not familiar with Tax Freedom Day it's the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for the year. It kind of makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside to know that by May, the average American will have worked long enough and made enough to feed the Leviathan by the Potomac. Thank God it won't starve.
Fat. Overweight. Bloated. Porky. We use the term fluffy to describe fat because it sounds so much nicer but it doesn't fit what has happened to the government run for our benefit. The increasingly divisive policies of our nations' leaders led to each agency adding to the rolls to try and bring on dependents until it becomes survival of the fittest in a twisted, obscene type way. I should be grateful that there are jobs being created, right? I should be grateful that we see ourselves as the world’s keeper and parse out money like we're creating it ourselves. Yes, I know we're creating it ourselves and some actually believe that more money printed means more actual money. It just isn’t so. I know that we have policies designed to obfuscate things where average citizen can't or won't find out just what is going on. I remember a movie where it was described as the "Potomac two-step".
A couple of years ago it was printed that the total unfunded liabilities of the US government was over 100 trillion dollars. Unfunded liability is another name for "we owe." By far the biggest two of these were Medicare and Social Security at about 3/4 of the total. The words trillion dollar deficit and trillions of dollars debt are mentioned so much and only in passing because no one wants to take responsibility for either. Congress blames the president. The president blames Congress. All the while it's really the American peoples' fault for allowing this to go on. Remember that definition of stupid? The one where you keep doing the same thing and expecting different results?
Remember back when we were told that certain companies and banks were "too big to fail." Failure is the sort of term where it depends upon your perspective. How do you define failure? In my life, I hope to make enough money to keep the lights on, family in clothes, vacation every year, gas in the car, and if that doesn't happen I think I have failed in some way. It's not true because of what I believe about God and the importance of other things in my life, but those thoughts are always close. I believe that our government has failed its people in the most important ways. Of making certain that the future of our country is dependent solely upon itself. Not the ones who hold its debt. Not the ones we trade with. Not anyone we have become dependent upon for our security. Just us. It's my belief that our leaders have taken a vacation from reality, at our expense, and aren't looking to come home anytime soon. Until next week. ags
