Like a Republican Flipchart: OMB news

OMB came out with what they call a "Mid-Session budget review", so ok I've never met federal-ese with numbers in it I didn't like to pore over to find what is in the tea leaves so - this seemed *way* more interesting than anything I was supposed to be working on..

What it shows are receipts (revenue to the government), outlays (what the feds spend on everything), and the net difference (deficits for the next 10 years). This is a 10 year view, and an update from the February budget projection.

How do things look? Looking at what we collect in terms of social security payroll tax and what we pay out, these numbers are fairly close. You could very certainly make tweaks to social security and make it balance. That is if you want there to be a nexus between taxes collected and what they are paid out for. As opposed to randomly collecting my hard earned income tax pennies and using it to build B-1 bombers and such which I did not ask for.

Here is the breakout of federal revenue for the current year, George this is for you!
43% Personal Income tax; 33% Social Security payroll tax; 9% Medicare payroll tax; 6.2% Corporate tax, 1.8% Unemployment tax. And other miscellaneous receipts.

But what we pay out is more than what we take in, consistently, every year. "Deficits as far as OMB can see", well for the 10 year view. And while I think and know that budgets are political statements, and this is authored by OMB, which is under direction and control by the White House (you know, the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that one). All of it looks unsustainable. Even to a Democratic administration.

If it were me looking at this budget at my kitchen table, like I was feeling when I thought my Little Theroem daughter might get accepted to MIT, with possibly no financial aid. Ack! Must get a better job cause this is important! Must get more income!

As Fareed would advocate, we need a VAT (Value-Added-Tax).

There are other interesting things in this document, look for yourself:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/11msr.pdf

Policy choices are costed out in there, over 10 years, with their budget impact. Most of this is at the margins. Its like trying to influence the ocean subduction zone by messing with outflows at the mouth of the Columbia River. It may be the right thing to do, but it has no impact.

Then read to the footnotes at the very end to find that the total federal debt it over $7 Trillion (or as they like to put it $7,000 Billion, which sounds smaller don't you think?)