GOP 2012 budget to make $4 trillion-plus in cuts

Yes, it's totally impossible for people to understand what it's like to pay taxes. It's such a difficult concept to grasp. Especially since there aren't any close analogs that they do pay, like payroll taxes for instance.

barfo

 

Most people just see their take-home pay, so they don't see the withholding. If they had to write a check for it on April 15, they'd be really pissed about the amount.

 

So, you are saying that even taxpayers can't grasp the concept of paying taxes?

barfo

 

They don't grok the amount or the side effects - like their employer paying half of FICA which could be paid as wages instead.

 

It could be paid as wages instead? Sure, on the planet where you defund half of social security.

Pretty sure that some people would grok the changes that would bring.

barfo

 

They'd grok the return on their 401K or annuities with much happier results.

 

Yeah, because Americans are really great savers and investors.

barfo

 

The government isn't a saver and investor when it's borrowing $1.4T yearly.

 

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/march-madness-feds-spent-more-eight-time

March Madness: U.S. Gov't Spent More Than Eight Times Its Monthly Revenue

During the month, according to the Treasury, the federal government grossed $194 billion in tax revenue and paid out $65.898 billion in tax refunds (including $62.011 to individuals and $3.887 to businesses) thus netting $128.179 billion in tax revenue for March.

At the same, the Treasury paid out a total of $1.1187 trillion. When the $65.898 billion in tax refunds is deducted from that, the Treasury paid a net of $1.0528 trillion in federal expenses for March.

 

Uh, no. That writer was apparently too focused on grinding his axe or whatever, and didn't read the financial statements very carefully at all.

Hell, you don't even have to look at the source material to know this is bullshit. You yourself have been saying $3.6T budget, $3.6T budget. So how could we have spent $1.1T in a single month?

barfo

 

I was going to start a thread about interpolation, but this is a good opportunity to broach the topic.

Why on earth do you think the govt. spends $3.6T/12 every month? This is interpolation, and it's a huge assumption.

It could spend $3.6T in month 1 and $0 in each succeeding month. At least in theory. That's the extreme opposite of interpolation.

The govt. WWW site works about as good as the govt as a whole. When I click on the link to see the financial statement, I get:

 

That's not any definition of the word interpolation that I am familiar with.

Yes, in theory it could. But that's about as useful in the real world as any other theory presented here. Reality says otherwise.
What does the government spend money on? You know the answer to that, right? Well, then it should be easy to see why the payments are spread out over the course of the year.

Sure, the government could pay everyone's annual social security and medicare on January 1. But they don't.

I'm skeptical about your use of the word interpolation.

Worked fine for me. Maybe I broke it.

barfo

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpolation

In the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis, interpolation is a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points.

In engineering and science one often has a number of data points, as obtained by sampling or experimentation, and tries to construct a function which closely fits those data points. This is called curve fitting or regression analysis. Interpolation is a specific case of curve fitting, in which the function must go exactly through the data points.

(You are constructing new data points between Jan 1 when the govt. has spent $0 through Dec. 31 when the govt. has spent all $3.6T by assuming $3.6T/12 is spent each month. the sample would be the start and end points, you really don't know enough about the in between points to say it's linear. Like the govt. spent $1.1T of that $3.6T in March. The article clearly states an exception to your faulty assumption - it spent $65B on tax refunds, which do bunch up in the first few months of the year).

 

Ok, I can see now how you were looking at it as being an interpolation.

And obviously, it is not absolutely, entirely, even spending throughout the year. But it isn't very different from that. As you know, $65 billion is less than 2% of the total.

And also quite obviously, the author is guilty of a gross, intentional misinterpretation of the data, which actually show that March was not a particularly unusual month.

barfo

 

Denny, just in case it isn't clear:

That did not happen.

barfo