Skip to content
Andrew Tobias
Andrew Tobias

Money and Other Subjects

  • Home
  • Books
  • Videos
  • Bio
  • Archives
  • Links
  • Me-Mail
Andrew Tobias
Andrew Tobias

Money and Other Subjects

The Debt We Owe Republican Leadership

September 26, 2005March 2, 2017

THE REPUBLICAN DEBT

Jeff Covey: ‘Seeing it has a bigger impact than anything you can say about it.’

☞ And this is just now. By the time we have a chance to right things, beginning in 2009, the National Debt will approach $10 trillion – nearly $8 trillion of it racked up under just three Presidents: Reagan, Bush and Bush.

THE INTEREST WE PAY ON THAT DEBT

Scott Obeck: ‘So, if my math is correct, does about 15 cents of each dollar we send to the federal government go to pay interest on the debt?’

☞ Not exactly. The interest on our National Debt – currently around $350 billion a year and headed higher – amounts to nearly 40% of the $893 billion we paid in personal income tax this year.

(Total federal revenue for the fiscal year just ending is estimated at just over $2 trillion. In addition to the personal income tax there will have been $773 billion in Social Security tax taken out of our pay – but that’s all supposed to go to pay benefits and store up a surplus for the future. Bringing up the rear: the corporate income tax, at $226 billion, and smaller items like excise taxes and the estate tax.)

THE ILLUSORY TAX CUTS

Well, we may have borrowed $8 trillion, but at least we’re all rolling in tax cuts.

Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine (as quoted in the June 5 New York Times Sunday Magazine) reported that the average pay for the top 25 hedge fund managers in 2004 was $251 million. They can be nothing if not happy about the tax cuts. Your own cut may not have been quite as large . . . you may have earned only $10 million in 2004 or even less . . . but who can fail to favor tax cuts?

Yet tax cuts, this author argues – as much as those hedge fund managers may have needed them – are illusory. (And not just because you’re increasingly likely to get hit up for the alternative minimum tax, if you’re a working stiff.) In tiny part:

Just remember, to spend is to tax. Not for nothing did the very, very conservative economist Milton Friedman once pen a column for the Wall Street Journal entitled ‘The Taxes Called Deficits.’ (April 26, 1984) . . .

Post navigation

← Press 1 for a Job, Press 2 for Pork, Press . . .
The Work Penalty →

Quote of the Day

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"

David Sarnoff's associates on his advocacy of radio in the 1920s

Subscribe

 Advice

The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need

"So full of tips and angles that only a booby or a billionaire could not benefit." -- The New York Times

Help

MYM Emergency?

Too Much Junk?

Tax Questions?

Ask Less

Recent Posts

  • Anyone? Anyone?

    July 11, 2025
  • "PAPERS PLEASE" -- Trump's Very Own Gigantic Police Force

    July 9, 2025
  • 5 Links And A Joke Walk Into A Bar

    July 8, 2025
  • There WAS No Cherry Tree

    July 7, 2025
  • "The Most Popular Bill Ever Signed In The History Of Our Country"

    July 6, 2025
  • Unbelievably Bad -- Literally

    July 4, 2025
  • Repeal The Steal

    July 2, 2025
  • Our Record-High Stock Market

    June 30, 2025
  • Stuffing The Goose

    June 30, 2025
  • Yes! (Plus A Bonus)

    June 29, 2025
Andrew Tobias Books
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
©2025 Andrew Tobias - All Rights Reserved | Website: Whirled Pixels | Author Photo: Tony Adams