Federal Taxation – What is the Real Number Each US Taxpayer Pays in Federal Taxation Each Year? (Simple Version)
Background:
Each week, we hear arguments from both sides on whether Federal Taxation is up or down from a number of years ago. The figures and argument can be justified by either side by selectively choosing how they define a “tax” and a “taxpayer”. The “Do the Simple Math!” approach below gives us a clear macro answer to this question. It is not perfect, as we still need to define what a “tax” and “taxpayer” is, but we are doing this in the most general definition of these terms, which is much harder to dispel.
Economic Stimulus Package and Michigan Job Creation
Background:
What spurred this calculation was a 1 minute report on CNN I saw in the summer of 2010. The theme of this report was “Where are our economic stimulus dollars going?” This referred to the American Recover and Reinvestment Act (“stimulus package”) passed by the US Congress in October of 2009. This report concentrated on the State of Michigan and shed a very positive light on how the dollars were being spent to create jobs there. The report ended with the statement “That’s one good example of how our stimulus dollars are being spent to get us all out of this recession!” The thing that amazes me is that the reporter displayed a map of Michigan which showed the “jobs created” and “stimulus money received” by Michigan, but never pulled out a calculator and did some simple division, which I quickly did in my head while watching the report. He may not have wanted to, because if he did, his report would have had a much less positive slant.
The GovMath Report 