Friday, September 29, 2006

Where is Congress spending your money?


I decided to go the federal budget website to look at where our money is being allocated to by Congress. Here is an interest topic of discussion that came across on the website:

--- "Budget Deficit" vs. "National Debt" ---

Suppose you want to spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a "budget deficit". So you borrow. The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you don't have enough money to cover your spending (another deficit), you must borrow some more, and you'll still have to pay the interest on the loan. If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don't have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy.Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress's appropriations. The total borrowed is more than $8,000,000,000,000 and growing. Even when government officials claim to have a surplus, they still spend more than they get in. We pay interest on that huge debt.
In Fiscal Year 2005, the U. S. Government spent $352 Billion of your money on interest payments* to the holders of the National Debt. Compare that to NASA at $15 Billion, Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion. For the current FY06, the running total is $385 billion spent on interest payments!

The National Debt is $8.5 Trillion! Updated 13 September 2006.

http://www.federalbudget.com/

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