Taxes and the insatiable welfare state

ascot-advisory.com

The Treasury Department of the United States Government hit another all time record high for tax revenues collected for the first five months of fiscal year 2016 (the fiscal year for them runs October to October, so we are talking about October 2015 through February 2016).  What was the haul?  Over US$1 Trillion Dollars just in the first 5 months alone.  This follows the record tax haul of over US$3 Trillion Dollars in loot collected for the entire fiscal year of 2015, which means 2016 could be on track for another new record for the carpet baggers in Washington.  And who is paying?

Individual US income tax payers are the largest contributors, forking over US$21,000 for every person working either full or part time.  The second largest source of booty was Social Security payments are other kinds of so-called payroll taxes (most Americans do not realize the true tax percentage of income taxes they pay because they often forget to calculate social security and other taxes taken out which puts many people way past 50 percent of income paid in terms of TOTAL taxes).  Corporate income taxes collected for fiscal year 2015 amounted to about US$350 Billion which compares to US$1.6 Trillion collected from individual taxpayers and roughly US$1 Trillion Dollars taken in from social security and other kinds of taxes.

Despite this all time new record in the roughly 250 years of the US Government being in business, they still ran a deficit in fiscal year 2015 of more then US$400 Billion Dollars.  In other words, despite a record haul, it still WAS NOT ENOUGH.  And figures for the first 5 months of fiscal year 2016 show a difference of US$350 Billion in terms of spending verses loot collection (they took in US$1.2 Trillion and spent US$1.6 Trillion just in the first 5 months!).  And another new record of course involves the official national debt of the US Government, which is quickly approaching US$20 Trillion Dollars, resulting in an amount that equates to about US$60,000 per US Citizen and US$160,000 per taxpayer (remember that the per citizen figure includes children, the retired and anyone else not working for what ever reason, which is comical when you realize even the homeless guy you find on the New York City subway platform owes US$60,000 as his share too – should we tell him?).  I will not even dive into the issue of unfunded liabilities, which some have estimated to be roughly US$100 Trillion Dollars, if not more (the proverbial 800 pound gorilla no one wants to acknowledge).