The Budget Crisis is Over, Isn’t It?

This past Saturday morning, Americans woke up with a collective sigh of relief. Congress and the President had reached an agreement to end the budget battles occupying Washington’s attention for the past several weeks. Crisis averted, the government didn’t shut down!

Oh, wait a minute. This is another continuing resolution. It only lasts until April 14.

The “deal” reached by Congress and the President is slightly more than 1% of the total Federal budget. The Republicans wanted $61,000,000,000 in cuts, the Democrats $0 so they compromised at $39,000,000,000. (These figures are BILLIONS of dollars.) The Federal deficit is $1,500,000,000,000. (That is TRILLIONS of dollars!!)

The 2011 budget, which should have been passed by a Democratic controlled Congress in October 2010, was for $3,800,000,000,000. (That’s TRILLIONS again.)

Just as a means of comparison, a trillion dollar bills, laid end to end, would reach to the moon and back 200 times. The moon averages a distance of about 238,000 miles from the earth, give or take a few miles. Since we are dealing with a $3.8 trillion budget, instead of 200 trips to the moon and back, we would need to make almost 800 round trips to stretch out $3.8 trillion dollars.

The “compromise deal” reached this past Friday evening is barely enough money to get started on a one-way trip to the moon. The moon, by the way, seems to be where most of our elected officials live. They certainly aren’t on the same planet as the rest of us.

So while our economy is crashing, unemployment remains horribly high and the invasion by illegal aliens continues unabated, our attention is focused on our elected representatives reducing spending by 1%.

Once more, thank our lucky stars; we have been saved by our ruling political class.

Excerpted from:
http://online.wsj.com
http://www.onlineforextrading.com/articles/2011-federal-budget
http://100777.com/node/4