What in the world is going on with this countries' budget? In the last few years we went from a surplus to a whopping defect. In the year 2000 the budget surplus was $2,364,450,000,000 today (2003) the deficit is projected at $3,041,590,000,000 that is a difference of 5,406,040,000,000 and this is only an estimate, it may be far bigger. Lets look at this in common terms so we can better understand the implications of this amount. If we take the projected deficit and divide it by the approximate number of people in the U.S. which is 292,306.266 (Source: U.S. Census Bureau) we find that every man, woman and child is running a deficit of $10 405.49. Imagine, just this year alone, based on its estimates the government will spend over $10400 more for each person in this country than it takes in. Click Here to see the projected budget chart (Source: US Government Office of the President). As if this wasn't bad enough, it get worse next year. Next year, according to the governments own estimates which, most likely, will be under estimated, the government will be short another $10 516.36 for each man, woman and child. In just two years we are showing that the government will be short almost $21,000 for each person in this country. Large deficits are projected to continue through the end of the projected budget period, which is 2008. How can a country survive running these huge deficits? If allowed to continue the deficit could break this country.

Does anyone remember what happed to Soviet Union? The Soviet Union put too much of their money into the military budget and not enough into the civilian budget. Finally they just ran out of money and communism fell. Well my friends, we are headed on that same road, the only difference is that we are not communists. Sure we need to defend ourselves but we are now in the position that millions of people in this country don't even have health insurance. If the public ever knew how many people were really out of work there would be a cry the likes was never heard here before. I say really out of work because of the way the unemployed are counted. If a person has a job making a substantial salary, lets say as a computer programmer, and his company decides to send all their work out to another country, because it is cheaper for them since the workers may only get three or four dollars per hour, and he is let go and has to take a job at minimum wage, this is not reflected in the employment figures. Yet this scenario is happening all over the country.

The following is an excerpt from the U.S. Department of Labor:

Is there a measure of underemployment?
Because of the difficulty of developing an objective set of criteria which could be readily used in a monthly household survey, no official government statistics are available on the total number of persons who might be viewed as underemployed. Even if many or most could be identified, it would still be difficult to quantify the loss to the economy of such underemployment.

On average in 2000, there were roughly 135 million employed and 6 million unemployed making up a labor force of 141 million persons. There were about 69 million persons not in the labor force. (Source: US Department of Labor)

This is a category called discouraged workers but they are not counted as unemployed. According to the AFL-CIO, over 2.5 million fewer jobs exist today than did in 2001, and this does not take into account the quality of the existing jobs.

Iraq may cost us 180 billion dollars, over the next three years, although I think it may be more. See The Cost of Toppling Saddam, Will an Iraq war hurt the economy? By Robert Shapiro.

The cost for financing Afghanistan for 2003 is said to be 5.2 billion dollars, this is the part we know about. The United States pay 22% of the UN budget and that was just lowered from 25 %. In addition to the bill for 25 percent of the United Nations regular annual $1 billion budget, the United States is charged for 30 percent of the separate, fluctuating peacekeeping budget, which in the coming year is likely to total more than $2.5 billion (Source: The Council for a Livable World, the Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation and PeacePAC ).

The U.S. government provided $12.9 billion in official development assistance last year, most of it through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and has spent hundreds of billions in aid since World War II. Figures for covert aid are not know by this writer. Sadly, many of the recipients of U.S. development aid are poorer now than they were before receiving assistance. (Source: Turn Off Foreign Aid? by Richard W. Rahn) Foreign aid was described by one person as taking from the poor in rich countries and giving to the rich in poor countries. With our own country in such dire straits can we afford to support other countries, especially when they seem to derive no benefit for the aid? When we give aid to other countries there are certain rules they must abide by. Many countries now feel that these rules are hurting them more than the money helps them. Aid to foreign countries since the end of the Second World War has exceeded ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS and is mounting steadily. But where is the government suggesting cuts be made? Click here to see a pdf file on testimony by Stephen C Goss, Chief Actuary, Office of the Chief Actuary, before a Senate Finance Committee. If you need a Free PDF Reader Click Here.

It is past time for the government to stop throwing money away. We must stop serving political interests, no matter what party is in office and retain more money for our citizens. Every U.S. citizen deserves hospitalization, food, if he is hungry and shelter. I am not advocating welfare. What I am saying is that is this country, still the richest on earth, where we have surplus food, no one should go hungry. And why should only the lucky and the rich be able to go to a hospital? With the cost of hospitalization sky high and nothing being done to make it affordable, some sort of government program should be implemented to help those with insurance. I am not talking about a free program here since many people without insurance are working, I am talking about an affordable program. Did you realize that many poor are taken in by hospitals who write off the charges, which in turn raises the cost of hospitalization? And lastly, shelter for the homeless is nothing new. Now a lot of them are sent to jails where the cost is much higher than a shelter. In the end it might be cheaper to house the homeless, which some cities do, then not to. If the government wants to give money to poor countries, why not help the poor in this country instead? A true war on terror is necessary but financing the rebuilding of countries is truly beyond the capabilities of any one country.