US Budget

[geni]

My AR15 disagrees.

No known manufacture sells submarines with that designation.

 

[Trakar]

Families don't provide for the general welfare and the common defense, for one thing.

families don't pay a third party to handle these concerns? I always have, but if there is a new avoidance loophole that allows one to avoid such obligations I'd be interested in learning more about it.

 

[magellan]

Families too have "general welfare" spending.
One could argue that the Family equivalence of defense and police would be water, food, electricity and a roof.
No: the real difference is the whole token printing thing.

 

[Dessi]

Now, remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget. [...]

This raises a lot of questions, but the one I want to ask is, is tax the only income the US government has?

I think it raises different questions, like whether the house metaphor of budgeting scales up to governments.

 

[balrog666]

US Government receipts for 2011 are approximately (in billions):
950 Federal Income Tax (personal filings)
200 Corporate Income Taxes,
800 Social Security, Railroad, and other retirement related taxes,
190 Medicare & related taxes,
150 Other - excise taxes, "trust" funds, and special assessments.

Technically speaking, taxes and spending for Social Security, Medicare, and the special assessments should be off budget. But that would reveal the true size of the deficit.

 

[Corsair 115]

This 268-page PDF file from the GAO has a very detailed examination of the U.S. federal government 2010 fiscal year. budget. The revenue broke down this way according to the report (includes both earmarked and non-earmarked funding):

Individual income tax and tax withholdings: $1,732.9 billion
Corporation income taxes: $179.6 billion
Unemployment taxes: $45.2 billion
Excise taxes: $71.6 billion
Estate and gift taxes: $18.8 billion
Customs duties: $25.1 billion
Other taxes and receipts: $127.5 billion
Miscellaneous earned revenues: $15.8 billion
Intragovernmental interest: $195.0 billion

Total: $2,411.5 billion

 

[balrog666]

This 268-page PDF file from the GAO has a very detailed examination of the U.S. federal government 2010 fiscal year. budget. The revenue broke down this way according to the report (includes both earmarked and non-earmarked funding):

Individual income tax and tax withholdings: $1,732.9 billion
Corporation income taxes: $179.6 billion
Unemployment taxes: $45.2 billion
Excise taxes: $71.6 billion
Estate and gift taxes: $18.8 billion
Customs duties: $25.1 billion
Other taxes and receipts: $127.5 billion
Miscellaneous earned revenues: $15.8 billion
Intragovernmental interest: $195.0 billion

Total: $2,411.5 billion

So detailed that they inadvertently lumped Social Security and Medicare taxes into Income Taxes?

Gosh, I wonder how they screwed that up?

 

[Corsair 115]

So detailed that they inadvertently lumped Social Security and Medicare taxes into Income Taxes?

Well, it does say "Individual income tax AND tax withholdings". I presume that "and" means something.

In any event, I would expect somewhere in that document is an explanation for the way they've defined things. But at the moment I certainly don't feel like going through 268 pages to find it...