Government Spending Per Minute: $6.85 Million

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government-spending-deficitHouse Republicans on Thursday trimmed about $35 million from the House’s operating budget, a move that Speaker John Boehner hailed as “a strong signal” of the new Congress’ “commitment to making the tough choices necessary to end Washington’s job-killing spending binge.”

But while $35 million is a lot of money to the average American, it’s worth thinking about just how “strong” a signal the House really sent. Consider: According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the government’s projected spending for Fiscal Year 2010 is roughly $3.6 trillion.

That’s 3.6 trillion – one three, one six, and 11 zeros.

Let’s put that number in context. There are 365 days in a year, 24 hours in a day, and 60 minutes in an hour. That adds up to a total of 525,600 minutes. Divide that figure into the $3.6 trillion in FY2010 spending and you find that the federal government spends about $6.85 million per minute.

That’s right – the government spends, on average, nearly $7 million every minute. That means the cost-cutting measure yesterday only saved taxpayers enough to cover about five minutes worth of spending – less time than it takes to hold the average congressional vote.

This isn’t to take anything away from efforts to address the government’s massive debt problem – every little bit helps. But it does point to the daunting magnitude of the task facing lawmakers.

Republicans say they want to deal with the deficit by cutting spending, not raising taxes. But according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, of the $3.6 trillion being spent in FY2010, only $2.2 trillion will be covered by tax revenues.

If you hold tax revenues at the same level, you’ll thus need to come up with $1.4 trillion in spending cuts to stop borrowing and balance the budget – which means cutting nearly 39 percent of the budget. You could cut the entire defense budget as well as funding for education and transportation infrastructure and you still wouldn’t be close.

As for the national debt – the number you get when you add up all those yearly deficits – it now stands at more than $14 trillion. That’s enough to make yesterday’s $35 million cut look positively quaint.

{CBS News TV/Matzav.com}


7 COMMENTS

  1. Perhaps from this, we can learn how precious life is. Hashem doesn’t just say this person will live to 98 this one to 108 & this one to 110, every day, hour & minute is a gift from Hashem, U’vacharta B’chaim-you should choose life-lets learn this now

    This is the only lesson that takes us a life time to learn (we never learn it ) & it gets revealed to us so many times each year. HOW LIFE GOES BY IN AN INSTANT. One second, i just made ????? from ??? & we are already up to lighting the friday candles, something is wrong here something has to be wrong 6 days just flew by .this is how every year goes by we go from ????? & Before you know it its time to order ????? ???? for ????? Then its exactly 30 days to ??? we then count exactly 7 weeks until ?????? then its exactly 4 weeks until ???? ??? ????? then comes the 3 weeks & then 3 weeks of summer & Before you know it its time to blow the ???? already YES A YEAR JUST FLEW BY & IS GONE FOREVER.

    What can we learn from Birthday’s? Why did Hashem invent a day to celebrate a persons birth? The lesson we can learn is, that last year on this day i was 39, today i became 40. A complete year has just gone by. What have i accomplished during this time? Was my time spent wisely? Maybe we can learn that every minute counts & is so precious & now another full year is gone forever.

  2. Conveniently, they do not say or do not want to say what this spending is for. It seems like the old hatchet approach when what we need to use is a scalpel.

  3. To wake-up call, where is the source that Hashem invented a day to celebrate a birthday. In the Torah we only find Pharoh and according to some Achashveirosh celebrated their birthday?

  4. to #4 Celebrating your birthday or someone elses birthday is not a goyish thing. A person has a right & a need of self esteem to feel good about himself & his accomplishments. the time to do that is on his/her birthday. The only question is how much a person celebrates on his/her birthday, sometimes people tend to go too far away from the ways of Yiddishkeit (ex: drinking, gambling & going out to party etc…)
    a birthday is not JUST for partying its there to make every person-on their birthday- feel good about themselves & important by seeing everyone care about him/her, & raise their self-esteem to help them move on to another year of success & Yiddishkeit BUT not too much by including all the examples above. (which some people do R”l)

  5. to # 4 the people of Earlier generations-Tzaddikim & regular simple workers-going back from 50 years ago to thousands of years, did not need Hashem to send them to celebrate their birthday every year. Their daily schedule was working to make ends meet & then going to the Bais medrash to learn. Unlike todays generation-which just started within the last 40 years max. compared to thousands of years-we need to be reminded what life is REALLY about, & that its MUCH more then about making & spending money & keeping the torah.

    SADLY every Generation, Klal yisroel is sinking lower & lower in Kedusha, as Hashem creates more & more Gashmius (worldly pleasure) in this world. if we don’t drop our desires NOW things are going to get very bad R”L

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