Posted 11:32 pm Sunday, August 05, 2012
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Budget Woes, August 5
Our federal government does have a budget, but it’s neither approved nor balanced. In a nutshell here’s what it projects:
Spending is broken down to “mandatory” spending, which includes such things as Social Security and Medicare. These are things we absolutely have to pay and they total $2.2 trillion. That just about uses up all the $2.4 trillion of total income.
Then we have “discretionary” spending which is broken down to $868 billion in “security” expenses (military, etc.) and $450 billion in non-security spending, which includes just about all the other functions of government.
Finally we have a little item called interest. We must pay $225 billion on our massive, near $16 trillion debt.
Add up the budgeted expenditures for a total of $3.8 trillion and deduct all total income received by the government, which is $2.5 trillion. This leaves a deficit of $1.3 trillion.
We must find a way to balance the budget and indeed “make a profit” to apply on past debt. Moderate cuts in all programs and stringent cuts in some programs could be a solution but our “Spender in Chief” isn’t even trying to balance the budget.
Congressman Paul Ryan has a plan that could eventually accomplish our goals. Congress should embrace the Ryan Plan and get started cutting wherever it does not affect job creation. Foreign aid and the United Nations could be a good place to start, along with bringing our troops home and capping all governmental spending at the 2011 level.
Gene Diedrick
Tyler
Finally we have a little item called interest. We must pay $225 billion on our massive, near $16 trillion debt.
Add up the budgeted expenditures for a total of $3.8 trillion and deduct all total income received by the government, which is $2.5 trillion. This leaves a deficit of $1.3 trillion.
We must find a way to balance the budget and indeed “make a profit” to apply on past debt. Moderate cuts in all programs and stringent cuts in some programs could be a solution but our “Spender in Chief” isn’t even trying to balance the budget.
Congressman Paul Ryan has a plan that could eventually accomplish our goals. Congress should embrace the Ryan Plan and get started cutting wherever it does not affect job creation. Foreign aid and the United Nations could be a good place to start, along with bringing our troops home and capping all governmental spending at the 2011 level.
Gene Diedrick
Tyler
