Balanced Government

I had the pleasure yesterday of being a guest on Common Sense Investing.  Kevin Clark, host of the show and President of Quintessential Retirement Services, Inc. invited me on the show to talk about our purpose and how imbalanced government affects all our lives.

The audio file is too large to upload here, but we’ve made the show available on our YouTube Channel in two segments.  Listen to the whole show by clicking on parts 1 and 2.

Our sincerest thanks to Kevin for having us on the show.  There was one point that came out in the interview that I want to repeat for complete understanding.

I did some research recently and most of my data comes from the Tax Foundation, a great organization that does amazing work cataloging who pays taxes in America and how much.  There are roughly 141 million federal income tax filers in the United States.  Of this figure, 35 million taxpayers comprise the top 25% of adjusted gross income (earning approximately $67,000 a year puts you in the top 25% of all earners).  These 35 million families and individuals pay 87% of all federal income taxes – essentially these folks are the engine that keeps America running.

If you take our current year’s deficit of roughly $1.3 or $1.4 trillion and add it to our historical (again, roughly) $12 trillion debt, and then divide that by the 35 million taxpayers, you must generate an invoice for each taxpayer (individual or family) of roughly $380,000.

Let that sink in for a minute.

Naturally, some taxpayers pay more than others in that top 25% bracket.  The point in illustrating an equal share like that is that our immediate problem is best described as system-failure risk.  By applying the principles of balanced government, we may be able to reign in current and future spending, but we’ve got a legacy of irresponsibility that must eventually be addressed, and we’re on the clock.