This could put a damper on unarmed nation-invasion — just bill them up front for “family reunification” and let everybody pay their fair share!
The federal debt held by the public totals more than $13 trillion, or about $107,000 per household in the United States, according to a report released this month by the Cato Institute. The report, titled “Washington’s Largest Monument: Government Debt,” suggests that growing debt, which has doubled over the past seven years, poses a burden on future taxpayers and could lead to a financial crisis.
According to Cato, financing government debt through tax collection creates distortions since much of federal spending goes to subsidy and benefit programs, which reduce work incentives and savings. One economist says that “it costs taxpayers $3 to provide a benefit worth $1 to recipients.”
Reminds me of Milo Minderbinder’s theory of economics as laid out in Joseph Heller’s Catch-22:
“Milo chortled proudly. “I don’t buy eggs from Malta,” he confessed… “I buy them in Sicily at one cent apiece and transfer them to Malta secretly at four and a half cents apiece in order to get the price of eggs up to seven cents when people come to Malta looking for them.”
“Then you do make a profit for yourself,” Yossarian declared. “Of course I do. But it all goes to the syndicate. And everybody has a share. Don’t you understand? It’s exactly what happens with those plum tomatoes I sell to Colonel Cathcart.” “Buy,” Yossarian corrected him. “You don’t sell plum tomatoes to Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn. You buy plum tomatoes from them.” “No, sell,” Milo corrected Yossarian. “I distribute my plum tomatoes in markets all over Pianosa under an assumed name so that Colonel Cathcart and Colonel Korn can buy them up from me under their assumed names at four cents apiece and sell them back to me the next day at five cents apiece. They make a profit of one cent apiece, I make a profit of three and a half cents apiece, and everybody comes out ahead.”
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