Don't rush to close this. We all get tired of the big numbers...beyond our
comprehension (and Congress' and BO's, too, apparently) but after the big
numbers below it is pared down by removing 8 zeroes and looking at it as a
household budget, debt, etc. JLS



Courtesy of Jack "Goat" Hogan, USMC Huey Gunship driver RVN
1968-69............Retired Delta Captain......"Fighter by Day, Lover by
Night, Drunkard by Choice"



Federal Budget 101

The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the
trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is so we created a
breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal
budget into perspective:

a.. U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
b.. Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
c.. New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
d.. National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
e.. Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent
of the budget)
f.. Deficit "Reduction" $2,200,000,000,000 over ten
years

It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can
relate to. Let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is
the household budget for the fictitious Hogan family.

a.. Total annual income for the Hogan family: $21,700
b.. Amount of money the Hogan family spent: $38,200
c.. Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
d.. Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
e.. Amount cut from the budget: $385