The politics of pots and kettles

Earlier this week, there was a summit of governor’s called by President Obama. The most interesting to me was one news report indicating they were going to talk about “fiscal responsibility.”

The fact that elected elite vote to spend yours and money today and put this country into such significant deficit that our children’s children will be still struggling to see the end of debt tells me that our elected officials are too entrenched in the attitude of “spend what I want” that this level of hypocrisy is laughable.

These are the people that are spending over $23,000 of every tax payers money in less than 1 year just in a bunch of “stimulus” bills.

The last people that can claim any level of fiscal responsibility are those that so freely spend your money and mine without thought of the reality they are causing.

But, what does this really mean? Is this something we should worry about?

I think yes.

Let’s put this into perspective, just a little bit.

Currently there are over 310,000,000 people in the United States. Of those 310 million people, less than half actually file their taxes (some don’t earn anything, some are kids, some are presidential cabinet appointees, etc).

The tax foundation estimated that in 2006 there were 135.6 million number of returns files. Of those 135.6 million people, 43.3 million people had a zero or negative tax liability… that means that  of 310 million people only 92.3 million people actually pay any taxes at all (or less than 30% of the population actually pays any taxes at all).

You get that? Less than 30% of the population pays taxes (100% of the population consumes what 30% of the population produces).

So, let’s think about the bailouts spent in the last year (you know, starting with Bear Stearns and going through the most recent bailouts and stimulus packages):

source: Newsdaily and ProPublica

I left all the zeros because it illustrates how big the numbers really are.

And yes, the total number is $2.157 trillion (with a T).

Let’s pretend that everyone who paid taxes will take on an equal share of this debt. Each of the 92.3 million people would be responsible for $23,444.56. That is more than my last car. That is a decent wage for my employees I hire that have zero experience.

If I was as fiscally responsible in my business and personal life as the elected elite, I would probably not be in business or have a home to live in. If I was so willing to spend other people’s money like the elected elite are willing to spend my money, I would probably go to jail.

Oh… and we see what the stock market has done since the bailouts started less than 1 year ago… I don’t think they are working out so well… do you?