Conservative Libertarian Outpost

This is for all those Americans that so desperately wanted “change.”

Americans had to work from January 1 until August 12 this year just to cover the cost of government.  That is 26 days more than they had to work last year to cover the cost of government.

“Cost of Government Day” this year fell on Wednesday, August 12, according to Americans for Tax Reform, the conservative group that calculates when the day occurs.  Cost of Government Day is the day in the year when the American people have earned enough income to pay the total cost of the spending and regulatory burden imposed by government at the federal, state, and local level.

The August 12 date is 26 days later than Cost of Government Day came last year, when it fell on July 16.

In fact, this is the first time the day has fallen in August. Until this year, July 20 was the latest date marking Cost of Government Day. That happened in 1982.

The day takes into account all taxes paid to all levels of government as well as the costs of complying with all federal, state, and local government regulations. ATR calculates that in 2009, the cost of government will consume 61.34 percent of national income.

Those costs are detailed in a 45-page report authored Monika Ciesielska, a fellow at ATR’s Center for Fiscal Accountability.

Of the 224 days it required Americans to pay for the cost of government in 2009, 111 went to federal spending, 49 to state and local spending, and another 65 to pay for regulations imposed by all levels of government.

“In 2009, federal spending has expanded by almost one trillion dollars, mostly due to the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the American Recovery and Relief Act of 2009, passed under the guise of economic stimulus,” Ciesielska said in her report.

“We have calculated that had Congress not passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 that created TARP, Cost of Government Day would have fallen on July 25. That means that it would have been 18 days earlier.”

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Tags: Change, Economics, Economy, News, Politics, Taxes

This entry was posted on August 22, 2009 at 08:05 and is filed under Editorial, Opinion, Education, Law, News, Politics, Wordpress Political Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.