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Federal Budget - FY2011

Eliminating the Federal Deficit

Source:  Office of Management and Budget, The Federal Budget for Fiscal Year 2011:
Summary Tables, Table S-4
Historical Tables, Tables 1.3, 8.5
FY2011 Federal Budget (Billions of Dollars)
TOTAL OUTLAYS $3,834 100%



Interest 251 7%
     
Mandatory $2,168 57%
Social Security 730 19%
Medicare 491 13%
Medicaid 297 8%
Federal Retirement 123 3%
Unemployment 103 3%
Food & Nutrition 95 2%
Veterans Income Security 69 2%
SSI 49 1%
Earned Income Credit 47 1%
Agriculture 19 0%
Other 145 4%
     
Discretionary $1,415 37%
Security (Defense) 895 23%
Non-security (NASA, …) 520 14%
     
RECEIPTS $2,567 67%
Individual Income 1121 29%
Corporate Income 297 8%
Social Security 674 18%
Medicare 192 5%
Unemployment 60 2%
Other retirement 8 0%
Excise (Alcohol, …) 74 2%
Other (Estate taxes, …) 141 4%
     
DEFICIT $1,267 33%

Ending the deficit without a tax hike would require:

* Eliminating Security (defense) and Non-Security (rest of government)
OR
Reducing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by 83 percent
OR
Reducing all “Mandatory" (entitlement) spending by 58 percent
OR
Reducing all Mandatory and Non-security spending by 47 percent

 

 

Alternatives to spending cuts:

Borrowing -> bankruptcy

Inflation -> savings, pensions lose value

Tax hikes -> more tax hikes

 

Since 1980, U.S. population increased 37 percent (from 227 to 310 million) while the inflation-adjusted federal budget increased 135 percent (from $1.4 to $3.3 trillion in FY2005 dollars)


Liberal and conservative approaches to government:

·      Liberals believe in wealth redistribution, since a large percentage of the population (in Liberals’ opinion) is incapable of generating the wealth to pay for its own food, housing, healthcare, retirement, etc.

·      Conservatives believe in wealth generation, since almost all of the population is capable of paying its own way, and the small percentage that cannot could be adequately assisted by their families and private charity.

 

The Liberal approach reduces wealth because a large segment of the population receives money without having to provide goods or services in return.  Also, the Liberal single-payer system (socialism) is prone to fraud, inflexible to innovation, and is a monopoly that serves elected officials, not the consumer.

 

7/19/2010                          The Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance                              www.fcta.org

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