Per Capita Spending Almost Doubled Since 2000...wow!

Year Fed. exp. Pop Per Capita Debt


2000 $1.79 trillion 282162 $6343 $5.63 trillion
2001 $1.86 284969 $6527 $5.77
2002 $2.01 287626 $6988 $6.20
2003 $2.16 290105 $7445 $6.77
2004 $2.29 292805 $7820 $7.35
2005 $2.47 295517 $8358 $7.91
2006 $2.66 298380 $8914 $8.45
2007 $2.73 301231 $9062 $8.95
2008 $2.99 304094 $9832 $9.99
2009 $3.52 306772 $11474 $11.88
2010 $3.46 309350 $11184 $13.53
2011 $3.60 311583 $11553 $14.76
2012 $3.54 313874 $11278 $16.05
2013 $3.45 316129 $10913 $16.74
2014 $3.78 318400 $11871 $18.25
2015 $3.90 321363 $12136 $19.15


All data from http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/


OMOF comments;

Federal expenditures will increase 118% since 2000

Population growth will increase 14% since 2000

Per capita government spending will increase 91% since 2000

National debt will increase 240% since 2000

If we ASSUME these same rates for the next 15 years;

2030 federal expenditures will be $8.50 trillion

2030 population will be 366353

2030 per capita spending will be $23,201

2030 national debt will be $65 trillion


Obviously the USA cannot continue down this same path…when we slow down or stop is anyone’s guess…but it is not sustainable by any stretch of a liberal’s or conservative’s imagination.

Why is it costing so much more per capita? I remember the year 2000 quite well and it seemed things were reasonable across the USA. What are we getting extra in this 15 year period that we didn't have in 2000 and so sorely needed?

The numbers above simply don't jive unless we have out of control spending, or, things were really horrible since 2000? Do some of you wish to attribute all of the increased spending to the recession that ended almost 5 years ago? I can see adding some debt but I can't understand the continued increase in per capita spending?

Comments?

 

Per capita spending when Clinton left office--- $6527
Per capita spending when Bush left office----- $11474
Per capita spending in 2013---------------------- $10913

 

This is political and meaningless...thanks for the deep thoughts...

 

OK, tell us what the per capita spending level should be, and do give us your deep thoughts on the subject...

Here's what I think, the government should spend as much as it reasonably feels is necessary, and then set tax rates to raise that much money.

 

It is obvious, assuming the nation is not at war or some other horrific event, that government should spend how much government takes in...period.

If the taxpayers are willing to fund $2.8 trillion...then the government can spend $2.8 trillion.

If the government 'desires' to spend $4 trillion...then the government must increase tax revenues to $4 trillion, and if not, they are being self-serving and fiscally irresponsible.

Politically there's always an excuse for government to spend...after all this is how political whores garner their votes. We have 535 members of Congress and one president and when is the last time any of them acted fiscally responsible or even communicated to the public the dangers of the path we are on? All of these 536 politicians spend 100% of their time maximizing the amount of bacon they can hand out to their voters. And the 150 million voters are equally to blame because all of them stand there with their hands out for anything that will benefit them...they demand more and more but only fund less and less.

The point of this thread was to simply point to our out of control spending and the accumulated debt. Was life in 2000 so horrible for the average American that our political whores were forced to increase per capita spending to today's levels? Since 2000, my personal life has advanced due to my actions but I don't feel the government is providing more than it did in 1980?

Bottom line; the US is headed down a path which IMO is a dead end; the question might be when we reach the end of our path? If this might be in 100 years then let's have some fun today, but, if we're already in pain and things are worsening and the same old problems get worse each year...then we better do something...

 

That is completely assbackwards, the government should spend what it needs to spend, and set taxes accordingly.
You start out with what you need to spend, not an arbitrary number that sounds good.
How did you arrive at the 10% number? Is that less than you pay now, and you think you pay too much...

Of course taxes are set by the same elected representatives who set spending, so they are doing the will of the people who elected them.
Or they'd be voted out, and despite all the polls that say people disapprove of congress, they have a re-election rate of something like 98%.
So when it counts, people are giving them a big vote of confidence....

 

Sorry but government should not be spending when they don't have the taxpayer funding...unless there is a critical event to overcome.

It's a back and forth negotiation between what government wants and what taxpayers will fund...but at the end of the day, government should only spend based on tax income.

Don't know what you're talking about...10%?

People vote based on political bias and not on what's in the best interest of the USA...this is one of our root problems...

 

OK, lets start small, say you are elected to a condo board, the board sets the fees, and pays to maintain the building and grounds.
They don't come up with a number and say "OK, the fee is $100/unit per month, and we'll have to live within that budget".
No, they figure out what they have to spend, and then set the fees accordingly.
Same with a city or town, they figure out what they have to spend on police and fire and schools and parks, etc., and set the tax rate accordingly.
There isn't a magic number, they have to balance between the desire to spend more and the desire to keep taxes down.
But you start with the budget, not with a set tax amount, unless you have something like Prop 2 1/2 to deal with, where increases over 2.5% require an override by voters. Even then that budget was originally based on what it cost to run the town, but the reality is, that there are things that the government can do a better job providing than private enterprise can. And in a rational society, those things are handled by the government.

 

The flaw in your example above is if you cannot increase the condo fees then you can't spend the money unless it was in reserve for such purposes. You can only spend what the tenants are willing to fund...period.

Tax rates are seldom correct today with most governments operating with deficit spending which is tough for local and state governments because they're not allowed to accumulate debt. The federal government simply does not care about debt. In fact the federal government funds the local governments with federal debt money...billion$ of federal debt dollars!

Spending at the federal level is out of control...and reckless...

 

Here's the problem Social Security/Medicare... only going to get worse.

 

Of all the government expenditures, I would think SS and Medicare would be the easiest to sustain...because they are self-funded. Perhaps FICA needs to be increased and/or the programs reworked for cost savings. For example, 64 million Americans collect SS and/or SSI, however...we only have about 40 million of them who are retirement age...the other 24 million need to be means tested!

 

Sure, but then the building needs a new roof and a new boiler and new siding and windows but the condo board has no money to pay for them because the owners were not willing to increase the condo fees to set aside money they know will be needed to replace these things eventually. The result is huge immediate assessments to pay for these things so the building is not condemned as uninhabitable by the local building inspector. These people were fools. the cost will be imposed on them regardless of their willingness or ability to pay.

The building has expenses, they are not negotiable.

Spending at the Federal level has been the same, 20-21% of GDP for the past 60 years and will decline to around 19% next year. What is recklessly out of control is maintaining tax cuts from the 2000s that reduced Federal revenues from about 19% of GDP to about 16%.

 

The infrastructure of the USA is crumbling and not kept up with population growth yet we do little to nothing because the ONLY money we have to spend is debt money and this quickly becomes political. Our presidents and Congress simply will not increase taxes in order to fund the fundamental needs of the nation and because debt is a sensitive and political issue they won't add another $2-$3 trillion in debt. So the nation crumbles.

What does GDP have to do with how much government spends? GDP is a measure of the economy, the private sector, not government?

 

The highway infrastructure is crumbling because federal gas tax revenues that fund highway infrastructure have not kept up with funding needs. The only reason for that is a rabid anti-tax increase sentiment that has made even sensible tax increases impossible over the past few decades.

You get what you pay for, no gas tax increase for a few decades will cause the infrastructure to fall apart.

 

Well...the federal fuel taxes have been kept low for decades in order to stimulate the economy. Increasing the costs of fuel has a negative effect on the entire economy so the powers to be decided to keep it low. And this does not bother me except when they know the fuel tax revenues won't grow and maintain the highways, then they should have appropriated other revenue to offset the low taxation policy. But as usual we don't fix our problems we just Bandaid them...

 

The argument that a ten or twenty cent increase in the federal gas tax will impede the economy is completely ridiculous when you consider current gas prices and that retail gas prices often change by 20 cents or more on a weekly basis and can vary by more than that within a few miles. An increase in the Federal gas tax would not be noticed by consumers and would have a positive effect on the economy by generating revenue for more infrastructure spending, creating jobs and improving transportation times.

 

Speaking solely about gasoline consumption (excluding jet and diesel, etc) the US consumes approximately 135 billion gallons per year. 135 billion multiplied by $.20 is about $27 BILLION per year in additional taxation. Might not seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but when a huge portion of Americans live pay-check to pay-check, and commute distances are 30 min. to 1 hour twice each day, paying higher fuel prices means less of other things consumed. Therefore, your gas tax is not a gimme...it's a trade off between food and fuel. How far do you believe a politician will get if one of their policy statements is to raise gas taxes by $.20 per gallon as soon as they get in office? And lastly, don't forget that nearly everything we have or do in society relies in some fashion on fossil fuels, so when you increase the price of fuel...you increase the price of everything...

 

$27Billion is a drop in the bucket in a $16Trillion economy, and a small price to pay to make sure that people and their stuff can get around.

Most of that huge portion of Americans living paycheck to paycheck are victims of their own bad choices. I know couples making 6 figures who live paycheck to paycheck. The poor people who live paycheck to paycheck mostly take the bus or walk, which is why it takes them an hour to get to work. Besides, the politicians who are most rabidly against any increase in the gas tax are not the ones who are concerned about the plight of those poor people living paycheck to paycheck, they are about protecting the wealthy from paying one penny of their riches involuntarily.

A 20 cent increase in the price of gas reflects an increase in the price of a barrel of oil by $5, which is determined by the commodities markets. Regulations on the commodity exchanges appear to require market participants to be actual suppliers and users of these commodities. Some questionable participants, like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan gained access to these exchanges through the proposition that they are users since they buy oil to heat their facilities. Through this preposterous argument they have brought massive speculative money into the oil markets. It has been estimated that speculative money brought into the oil markets through these loopholes has caused the price of a barrel of oil to be inflated by an average 30$ over actual user demand.

So, if you are so concerned about the price of gas, there are more trees to be barking about than an increase in the tiny gas tax to fund the repair and improvement of our failing infrastructure. Kicking the speculators out of the oil markets would reduce the price of gas to less than $2. Kicking them out of all the commodity markets would allow more poor people to buy cars and drive to work instead of taking the bus.

 

This is not rocket science...tens of millions of people DO NOT have any extra money, they live pay-check to pay-check! If you force inflation then they must make choices between fuel and food. No matter how you wish to blame people for 'their own bad choices', the reality which we must work with says if you increase fuel prices then it negatively effects the economy. The USA decided to keep fuel taxes low in order for fuel costs not to be a huge burden thereby helping to energize the economy.

Even if everyone was mega-wealthy, you still cannot place 10-20 million people in a square mile where no one needs a car?

No one is protecting the wealthy?? The wealthy don't need protecting. There are no government conspiracies to protect the wealthy??

Oil prices are not determined by the commodities market? They are determined by supply and demand.

Anyone can buy oil futures...there are NO market conspiracies? Commodities might be orange juice, wheat, cattle, gold and oil. If you or your so-called wealthy evil people and corporations were to buy $40 billion in oil futures at $105 per barrel, and a week later the supply of oil is suddenly increased, the actual price of oil might decline to say $80 a barrel...so in what possible way did the commodity markets determine the $80/barrel price of oil?

 

Actually, economics is far more complicated than rocket science, which is simple physics. Far more math PhD's are economists than rocket scientists.

The US has kept the gas tax low for decades because there is a powerful political faction in Congress that opposes all tax increases.
The gas tax is dedicated to fund highways. It should do so.

Supply and demand price determination is a general concept. In order to understand how any particular market actually functions to determine price one is obliged to delve into a more detailed understanding of market dynamics. For example, it has been determined that in an inelastic market near saturation, i.e. one where demand is near the limit of supply like the oil market, speculative activities can have a far greater effect on price than any change in actual supply or demand.

To explain:
Elasticity in markets is, in general terms, the ability of markets to adjust both supply and demand according to price signals. In other words, as the price of a commodity rises users may begin to substitute it for another, which reduces demand. As the price declines suppliers may discontinue production, which reduces supply. The greater the ability of both users and producers to do this, the greater the elasticity of the market.

Consider a market where the supply is not easily increased or decreased over the short term but can be over the medium term. In other words highly inelastic over the short term.
Consider that average daily demand in the market is 98% of available supply and also highly inelastic over the short term.
The price is determined by continuous trading on a $500Billion commodities markets.
Now think about how someone who has control of $20Billions to speculate in this market can deploy that money to make the most profit.
The best way to do that would be to remove 3% of the supply from the market, which would cause the price to skyrocket as desperate users bid up prices as they fight over inadequate supply, and when the price peaks, sell.
This is how the investment banks and hedge funds speculate in the oil market. They leverage $100Billions to buy up future delivery contracts, charter oil tankers to take delivery and secretly hold the oil off the market, which increases market saturation to over 100%, which increases the average price and makes any little news that can upset supply set off a frenzy of speculative buying that drives prices even higher, peaking at $130 a few years ago, then dropping to $80 within a few days as the speculators sold off their oil and cashed out.

The price of gas went from $2.00 to $4 a gallon and has been more than $3 since. The Saudi's who know far more about the economics of oil than most, have refused to increase output to reduce the price until the western nations kick the speculators out of the oil markets. They have adopted the position that the actual supply and demand price of oil is about $80 and any price above that is entirely due to market speculation and manipulation. Meanwhile the US has doubled its domestic oil production, South Dakota alone produces almost 1million barrels a day, more than Iran, and consumption is declining but the price of a barrel of oil is still $100.

How does that effect those who live pay-check to pay-check?
If you believe that speculators have some right to make oil prices higher than actual supply and demand then you are the reason why people who live paycheck to paycheck cannot afford to buy gas or that the roads they drive on can get them to work without undue wear and tear on their vehicles. Replacing broken struts because of potholes is far more expensive than another 10 cents a gallon for gas to a person living paycheck to paycheck.

 

I pay a ss tax for every dollar I earn, so should the rich.. that is our problem.. time to remove the caps

and maybe say you can't collect on ss benefits any year you make more then 1 million take home.... as you do not need it, that is for the ones that do need it

social security is a insurance plan that covers those that need it in their retirement years
.

 

If one pays into the system one should be able to draw whether one "needs" it or not. Need is somewhat subjective and can be determined by one's choices. I save a lot of money for retirement (17.5% of my gross pay into my sep-ira and I max out my roth IRA every year, I also invest outside of retirement accounts). I know many other peeps with incomes similar to mine who (*)(*)(*)(*) it all away on big houses, cars, vacations etc. They are going to "need" their SS where as I will be able to get by without it (that's the plan anyway). Their need is going to be driven by their poor financial choices and those who can and do act responsibly will be punished. If one can't opt out of the system (IMO would be a disaster cause lots of idiots would opt out that really shouldn't) then one shouldn't be opted out of the benefits they paid for. I don't have a problem with lifting the caps, nor even limiting the benefits to a degree, but one at a minimum ought to be able to get out their inflation adjusted contributions back out of the system.

I'd also decouple the SSI disability from regular SS and remove provisions that allows kids of old guys (drawing SS) to draw SS as a dependent... complete bull(*)(*)(*)(*) that. And oh, people who didn't ever work shouldn't be able to draw 50% of their spouses benefit, why should such couples get a 50% boost on their pay in/draw ratio compared to everyone else. Again got no problem with married couples somehow electing to split the benefits earned by the breadwinner, just not more.

 

if when your 77 years old you make 1 million take home.. why would you 'need' to collect social security that year, now if next year you only made $100.00, then you should be able to collect... simple

how much you have saved should not effect the amount you can withdraw in anyway, only your taxable income for that given year you want to collect....

SS is a insurance policy society that pays to help the elderly and disabled that need it when they retire

time to remove the caps and make the rich pay ss tax on every dollar they earn like the rest of the working class does

.

 

The commodity markets are driven by supply and demand trends, whether it be hedging or speculating in commodities, those decisions are based on guesses about supply and demand trends. If supplies are increasing and demand is decreasing or static why would a commodities speculator purchase oil futures at higher prices than what they believe consumers will pay? I'll bet a bottle of fine wine that in my little corner of the world, where we have only four gas stations, that if locals and tourists slow or stop buying from these four stations, that the price of gasoline will go down...no matter what the commodity prices might be.

FYI...today in my area 87 octane is $3.99/gallon and 'typically' gas prices continue to climb through Memorial Day. Even in our high cost of living area these rising gas prices will effect the overall economy...

 

As with any investment, in this case SS, contributors should not be paying more than they will eventually realize. Do you actually believe that two people contributing to any investment plan, in which one contributes $3500 per year and the other contributes $70K per year, in which both of them will collect from SS at retirement $2000/month, that this would be a fair policy?? SS IS NOT a tax! It's a payroll withholding in order to fund a recipient's retirement. Removing the cap would be nothing more than political BS and wealth redistribution and another form of welfare.

No matter if a person is a billionaire, they are entitled to the full benefits of SS...the program which they funded their entire life in order to have benefits at retirement...this could not be more simple! It's no one's business to decide if someone should get their investment payback or not.

What's wrong with everyone tending to their own business instead of constantly salivating over the wealthier...