$87,836
That's the amount of money that the federal gov't would be spending each second under Bush's proposed 2007 budget. That's a bit more than twice what the average American household makes in a year. Gone. Every second of every day.
The total proposed budget for 2007 comes to a whopping $2.77 trillion. Not so long ago, that was the size of the nation's entire debt, and people were saying that that was too high.
I fear that nowadays, people are becoming numb to the true scale of numbers this high. Million, billion, trillion...they only differ by the first 1 or 2 letters. But how much is $2.77 trillion, really?
One way of looking at it is to say that if you took 2.77 trillion dollar bills and put them end-to-end, it would stretch well over half-way from the sun to Jupiter. (For you astronomy buffs out there, 1 trillion dollar bills are almost exactly [just over] 1 AU in length.) Still, that may not give enough of a picture for some. It may be better to put it into relative terms.
The average American makes a bit over $1 million over the course of his/her lifetime. (Say for the sake of argument an average of $25,000/year times 40 working years.) Now when the gov't taxes us in whatever form to raise the money it spends, it is effectively removing that money from the economy. (Plus a good chunk more, when you factor in opportunity costs, regulatory compliance costs, etc. etc.) So when the gov't decides it needs $2.77 trillion of America's money, that means it is removing from the economy the equivalent total lifetime economic activity of about 2.77 million Americans, a bit under 1% of the total (not just taxpaying) population. Economically, it's as if these people never were born.
Of related interest, the US population growth rate (2005 estimate) is 0.92%, or about roughly the same as the percentage above. This raises an interesting question. What happens when gov't spending equals or exceeds the total lifetime economic output of the growth rate of the country? Such a level of spending would seem to cancel out (or more) any increases in real GDP from population growth, leaving just per-capita productivity increases as a means of growth. Perhaps someone with more of an economic background would care to argue this point with me, but from where I see it, gov't spending at such high levels would seem to put the country in a rather precarious economic position.
The total proposed budget for 2007 comes to a whopping $2.77 trillion. Not so long ago, that was the size of the nation's entire debt, and people were saying that that was too high.
I fear that nowadays, people are becoming numb to the true scale of numbers this high. Million, billion, trillion...they only differ by the first 1 or 2 letters. But how much is $2.77 trillion, really?
One way of looking at it is to say that if you took 2.77 trillion dollar bills and put them end-to-end, it would stretch well over half-way from the sun to Jupiter. (For you astronomy buffs out there, 1 trillion dollar bills are almost exactly [just over] 1 AU in length.) Still, that may not give enough of a picture for some. It may be better to put it into relative terms.
The average American makes a bit over $1 million over the course of his/her lifetime. (Say for the sake of argument an average of $25,000/year times 40 working years.) Now when the gov't taxes us in whatever form to raise the money it spends, it is effectively removing that money from the economy. (Plus a good chunk more, when you factor in opportunity costs, regulatory compliance costs, etc. etc.) So when the gov't decides it needs $2.77 trillion of America's money, that means it is removing from the economy the equivalent total lifetime economic activity of about 2.77 million Americans, a bit under 1% of the total (not just taxpaying) population. Economically, it's as if these people never were born.
Of related interest, the US population growth rate (2005 estimate) is 0.92%, or about roughly the same as the percentage above. This raises an interesting question. What happens when gov't spending equals or exceeds the total lifetime economic output of the growth rate of the country? Such a level of spending would seem to cancel out (or more) any increases in real GDP from population growth, leaving just per-capita productivity increases as a means of growth. Perhaps someone with more of an economic background would care to argue this point with me, but from where I see it, gov't spending at such high levels would seem to put the country in a rather precarious economic position.
posted by Unknown at
2/18/2006 02:14:00 PM
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