In the name of sanity, Washington, stop spending our money so irresponsibly

By Tom Quiner

I created the chart above two years ago.

It is simple. I take every penny Washington spends. I divide it by the population for that year. I adjust for inflation and put all this federal spending in 1980 dollars.

You’re able to quickly see how much money your government spends per legal citizen for that year.

I do this to clarify how our nation has piled up an incomprehensible national debt.

I don’t  know about you, but my head swims when politicians bounce around budgetary figures in the billions and trillions.

My little chart, which I dub “Federal Spending for Dummies,” brings spending down to understandable numbers for the layman.

It reveals something in a flash: we have a spending crisis, not a tax crisis. By 2010, we were spending twice as much per citizen as when Jimmy Carter left office.

As I have written in recent weeks, government tax receipts per citizen is not much different under President Obama vs. President Clinton at the end of his term, when the budget was in balance.

It is spending which is completely out of control, and Republicans deserve a fair share of the blame. Look how numbers began to skyrocket under President George W. Bush and a Republican legislature. Under President Obama, our spending, our deficits are quickly reaching a point of no return. They are not sustainable on its present trajectory.

And yet the president and his party refuse to talk about spending.

They refuse to talk about entitlements.

They will only talk about increasing taxes on our most successful Americans, a tax increase which will pay for the running of our massive government for two-hundred hours.

That’s it.

If I were to update the chart above through 2012, the spending line would continue its vertical ascent towards bankruptcy.

In the name of sanity, Washington, stop spending our money so irresponsibility.

For the sake of our children and grandchildren, please stop the bleeding.