$48 a Month
2011-03-01 - by
Up in Washington there’s a big rhubarb going on over Republicans cutting $60 billion in government spending.
‘Heaven forbid,’ the newspapers are reporting, ‘workers will have to be furloughed.’
‘Horror of horrors,’ the editorialists add, ‘the government may shut down.’
Every agency from Social Security to Homeland Security is moaning and predicting dire consequences of undefined proportions.
But how big is a $60 billion cut? The federal government spends $3.6 trillion dollars a year – so $60 billion is a 1.6% cut. Or to look at it another way: If your paycheck is $3000 a month that’s a $48 a month pay cut. Or, more precisely, since Washington is borrowing $100 billion a month, all the proposed 1.6% cut does is slow down – just a bit – how long it will be before the government is flat-broke.
$48 a Month
2011-03-01/
Up in Washington there’s a big rhubarb going on over Republicans cutting $60 billion in government spending.
‘Heaven forbid,’ the newspapers are reporting, ‘workers will have to be furloughed.’
‘Horror of horrors,’ the editorialists add, ‘the government may shut down.’
Every agency from Social Security to Homeland Security is moaning and predicting dire consequences of undefined proportions.
But how big is a $60 billion cut? The federal government spends $3.6 trillion dollars a year – so $60 billion is a 1.6% cut. Or to look at it another way: If your paycheck is $3000 a month that’s a $48 a month pay cut. Or, more precisely, since Washington is borrowing $100 billion a month, all the proposed 1.6% cut does is slow down – just a bit – how long it will be before the government is flat-broke.