Government Give More in Hand Outs than it Collects in Taxes from Households

[boedicca]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

 

[Navy1960]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

While I agree that Govt. in general is in dire need of a litte house cleaning, I'd be interested in knowing how the unemployment figures run with that graph. The one line especially looks like a big drop off right around the time unemployment shot up. I don't have any data on this but it's just and observation. I for one am of the opinion that spending as a percentage of GDP is way way out of line. However, I also believe that the problem with our financial house is not a singular one, and if you just reduce spending without reforming the policy that created the ability to spend in the first place as well as create new sources of revenue then all your doing is fixing one leg of of a tri-pod that has three legs broken.

 

[boedicca]

Certainly UI is a problem, but the trend lines were unfavorable before then.

What is making this a permanent, structural issue is that Obama has baked the "one time" stimulus package into the budget baseline, and that money is largely spread around a bunch of transfer payment related programs. We need to roll spending back to 2007 or 2008 levels and then reform from there.

 

[Claudette]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

Good post Bo.

O'Reilly touched on this last night.

Apparantly for the first time since God knows when the takers outnumber the producers.

Food for thought. Wonder if the Clowns in DC are aware or if they care??

 

[Cuyo]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

Seems like the overtake coincided with a financial event of some magnitude.

 

[boedicca]

They're aware - but a great many do not care.

They are too engaged in the game of musical chairs to ensure they gather up enough taxpayer money for themselves before the system implodes.

 

[boedicca]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

Seems like the overtake coincided with a financial event of some magnitude.

The "overtake" coincided with the Stimulus package, bub.

 

[DiamondDave]

IMHO... the blue line should be a flat one... at the ZERO level

 

[editec]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

\


Per usual I just want to remind you that Social security and veterans benefits are NOT handouts, not welfare and in no way charity.

Social security is an insurance scheme wherein the workers ALREADY paid for their own insurance. Hence to call that welfare is nothing but right wing partisan CLASS WAR nonsense

And veterans benefits are a contractual repayment for services ALREADY rendered. Hence, to call that welfare is also nothing but right wing partisan CLASS WAR nonsense, too.

 

[boedicca]

Per usual I just want to remind you that Social security and veterans benefits are NOT handouts, not welfare and in no way charity.

Social security is an insurance scheme wherein the workers ALREADY paid for their own insurance. Hence to call that welfare is nothing but right wing partisan CLASS WAR nonsense

And veterans benefits are a contractual repayment for services ALREADY rendered. Hence, to call that welfare is also nothing but right wing partisan CLASS WAR nonsense, too.

And right on cue, the point goes over your pointy little head.

TRANSFERS have to be paid for, even if they are for a good cause. We cannot continue to provide them by BORROWING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY.

SS is not insurance, by the way. It is a ponzi scheme welfare program in which current taxpayers pay the benefits for current recipients. There is no investment pool to make guarantee one's benefits. And the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can change it at any time.

 

[Cuyo]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

Seems like the overtake coincided with a financial event of some magnitude.

The "overtake" coincided with the Stimulus package, bub.

Oooh I love it when you call people "bub." I also like when you say stuff is 'Sophistry.' Could you please do that in your next response?

YES, you are correct. The Stimulus package, AND the overtake per your graph, both coincided with a global economic cataclysm. Why do you find that so shocking?

 

[DiamondDave]

I wish the SS proponents would look at the life expectancy of persons when it was initiated (not that I agree with the system at all... for if it were so great, why would it have to be mandatory?) and the age one was able to collect... and compare that to today...


And also realize that SS has been bastardized even more as a petty cash fund from where our corrupt and overbloated government grabs at will to feed it's lust for power and money

 

[NYcarbineer]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

So this only started a couple years ago???!!!

I guess the 30 some years of deficits before that have to blamed on something else.

 

[NYcarbineer]

This is quite simply our budget problem in a picture:

Government transfers of income to households started to overtake personal taxes at the start of 2008, and the gap has been widening. In 2010, households received $2.3 trillion in income support from unemployment benefits, Social Security, disability insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, education assistance and other cash transfers of government funds to individuals. Also last year, households paid $2.2 trillion in income, payroll, and other taxes. The difference was $125 billion, equivalent to 1 percentage point of overall personal income and about three times the amount Republicans and Democrats agreed to cut from government spending through Sept. 30.

Budget Deficit: Government Handouts Top Tax Income


We can't continue this out of control unlimited spending on entitlement programs. The major objective of the budget should be to reform these so they do not exceed reasonably tax receipt forecasts. The other side of the equation is the absolutely abysmal employment picture due to how this spending is crushing GDP growth. More jobs will lift receipts - but this won't happen until the spending is addressed.

Seems like the overtake coincided with a financial event of some magnitude.

The "overtake" coincided with the Stimulus package, bub.

No, it coincided with the impact of the severe recession when declines in the economy produced less tax revenue and an increase in demand for means-tested assistance, including unemployment, Medicaid, etc.

 

[BlindBoo]

Per usual I just want to remind you that Social security and veterans benefits are NOT handouts, not welfare and in no way charity.

Social security is an insurance scheme wherein the workers ALREADY paid for their own insurance. Hence to call that welfare is nothing but right wing partisan CLASS WAR nonsense

And veterans benefits are a contractual repayment for services ALREADY rendered. Hence, to call that welfare is also nothing but right wing partisan CLASS WAR nonsense, too.

And right on cue, the point goes over your pointy little head.

TRANSFERS have to be paid for, even if they are for a good cause. We cannot continue to provide them by BORROWING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY.

SS is not insurance, by the way. It is a ponzi scheme welfare program in which current taxpayers pay the benefits for current recipients. There is no investment pool to make guarantee one's benefits. And the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress can change it at any time.

The Social Security system is primarily a pay-as-you-go system, meaning that payments to current retirees come from current payments into the system.

Paid-in contributions that exceed the amount required to fully fund current payments to beneficiaries are invested in securities issued by the federal government. The securities issued under this scheme constitute the assets of the Social Security Trust Fund. Because under current federal law these securities represent future obligations that must be repaid, the federal government includes these securities within the overall national debt.

...the Social Security Trust Fund does not hold any marketable assets to secure workers' paid-in contributions. Instead, it holds non-negotiable United States Treasury bonds and U.S. securities backed "by the full faith and credit of the government".

The trust funds run surpluses in that the amount paid in by current workers is more than the amount paid out to current beneficiaries. These surpluses are given to the U.S. Treasury (and thus become part of the general federal budget) in exchange for special U.S. government securities, which are deposited into the trust funds. If the trust funds begin running deficits, meaning more in benefits are paid out than contributions paid in, the Social Security Administration is empowered to redeem the securities and use those funds to cover the deficit.

As of the end of calendar year 2010, the accumulated surplus stood at just over $2.6 trillion.[8] Projections are that current receipts will continue to exceed expenditures until 2017. Thereafter, there will be a shortfall that will be made up by withdrawals from the Trust Fund, although the Trust Fund will continue to show net growth until 2025 because of the interest generated by its bonds.[9]

The Trust Fund will gradually be drawn upon to cover the difference between tax receipts and benefit payments. It will be completely depleted by 2042

Social Security Trust Fund - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also I've paid into S.S. for 35 years now and probably will for the next 15 years, so I take exception to calling S.S. benefits welfare.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Social spending is 21% of the budget, outside Medicare and S.S. We borrowed 40% of the budget in 2009.

Where did the rest go?