Last year's federal budget is about $2.2 trillion (see page 26 of 311) with an $0.3 trillion deficit. My taxes are rounded out of that number... so are yours.
My oldest son sent me a link regarding Federal discretionary spending. It's so much that you can't see it on one screen. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the data, but it certainly is an interesting visual.
If any of you are wondering how our representatives in congress control this, join the club. I used to develop sales objectives at Ford Motor Company. What a pain it is to manage a few billion! You don't really manage trillions... you sort of baseline plus a few percent each year. I think a program gets killed if someone can generate enough bad publicity about it or someone realizes that all the people involved in it died 20-years ago.
So, as we get prepared for the next season... the tax season... just be grateful that you only have to deal in thousands. Well, okay, grateful may not be appropriate. I'd be grateful if I could deal in millions!
