Every American's Power

I am an American, and I love my country just like 300 million other people. I have seen a lot of lies being passed around in the media recently having to do with the past year's deficit. I was bothered by this because they didn't quite sound right, were consistently different, and sounded too high. I was right, they were lying.

If every American went online, at home or at a library, we should all go to one website filled with facts and statistics that give us bundles of information. It is www.usaspending.gov which has every federal report from 1999 to 2007 and the information for the past year's spending by category.

I also must say to people who have been throwing out inaccurate numbers on this past year's spending, you aren't helping your country by starting rumors. It is time to stop playing party politics, and to be one nation indivisible.

Okay, down to facts, the number that usaspending.gov gives for Fiscal Year 2009, adding up every category is $1,000,232,810,837. One trillion dollars!!! This sounds like a lot of money, and it is. However, you have to keep in mind that this country has 307,711,711 people (at 12:01 on October 16, 2009 source: census.gov) so that means, to put it in perspective, the government is spending $3,250.55 per every American, (source wikipedia.org) or about the amount a person would have to pay in tuition to go to a community college for one year. (collegeboard.com)

I could stop here and those facts would be good enough, but a trillion bucks is a lot of money! $3,250.55 is still a fair chunk of change! We need to put in perspective how much that is for our country's budget. Let's put it in perspective.... In 2007, which is the last year I can get an official fiscal report for, the averaged amount for the two approximations for spending on the fiscal report, is $2,556,213,000,000. (page #1 or the 27th page on the pdf) To average that with the population of the United States on July 1, 2007, (source census.gov) which was 301,621,157. The $ per capita is $8,474.91. That is more than twice the amount spent in Fiscal Year 2009.

Take these as you will.

United We Stand, Divided we fall. Out of many, one. Let Freedom Ring.

Originally written on October 16, 2009.