How tight is the United States budget, really?

What you asking from Bobby is way out of line. I have been employed at a public tax firm too. Asking Rommy to open up is one thing, asking a Setizen is criminal.

Social security was created to help all those who put in their best effort to defeat Japanese imperialism and the Nazis.

It was? The teacher here needs to study their history.

bobby, how about you make your last federal income tax return available publically here in the seti forums so we can first get an idea why you pay as little or as much as you do?

The math of military pensions is available to the public and it looks like you're pretty close. My personal military pension is my personal military pension. I followed the rules, did what I was told, and was shot at a few times while I was active duty. Although I was not shot at as much as some of my other brothers-in-arms, I did what I was asked to do and now the deal is that I get my pension.

If you want to attack military pensions, talk to your representative and tell him we need to balance the federal budget on the backs of military veterans still alive today by taking away their military pensions. (Another good math problem to work out and see what the actual truth is!)

Presumably that would be a government expenditure you and others (myself included) here would not argue to cut.

That's not the truth.

The truth of the matter is if you give every leech in the U.S. $96,000/year from the producers, there would be one big party in Vegas and the Boardwalk and the next year, this country would crash and turn into a country no better off than Somalia.

That's nothing but ideology, an aggressively misanthropic kind. None of the Founders of my country, nor the mythical Jesus ever referred to the unfortunate as "leeches" and nobody who does deserves anybody's respect.

But thanks for proving me right. Like I guessed, our disagreement clearly does not have to do with math anyway, but with psychology and character -- your lack of any.

Ok, let me get you back on topic and a little closer to the truth.

http://www.irs.gov/file_source/pub/irs-soi/09in11si.xls

Wow, the IRS has the 2009 data available publicly now. I wish I could be that efficient. Keep in mind this is the first year President Obama was in office and blaming Bush 43 for everything. This was his honeymoon period. The numbers have gotten worse since then.

Ok, now, take a look at line 29. Scroll over to column L. That number there is $204,322,325,000. That's the total taxable income for returns greater than $10 Million Dollars. Greater than $10M -- that's MILLION.

8,211--------------Returns GREATER than 10 MILLION dollars
$204,322,325,000---Total taxable income from them
$1,133,650,000,000--to try to shore up this deficit
$16,176,000,000,000--to try to eventually start lowering this debt

So, you tell me, what would happen if we had a 100% tax bracket for anyone making more than $10M?

I know you want a 100% tax bracket for anyone making more than $1B and "what ever it takes" tax bracket for those making between $2M and $1B.

But what if we had a 100% tax bracket of all those making $10M and more?

Ya know, there were a lot of people in here that where pretty excited when you showed up and said you were going to show me the math. They were all hoping you were going to "put me in my place," finally. But I'm afraid you disappointed them. You disappointed me also. I was hoping you'd be the one to help me spread the truth.

But I guess we'll just have to wait and see what our next president of the United States does and see if he can COERCE Harry Reid into doing SOMETHING/ANYTHING towards actually fixing the financial mess the tax and spend nanny state of the last few decades has created.

Uli, I must disagree with you. Anybody who's striving to become the caretaker of public property should be squeaky clean. And to show they are squeaky clean, they should be willing to give the public a glance at their private lives. Other wise, we cannot make accurate judgments about whether or not they'd be responsible stewards of the piles of money we entrust to them.

WinterKnight, excellent article about government corruption. I'm surprised to find something like that in the Washington Post. The more the voter is informed of such, the better off we'll be in the long-run.

Sirius B, thank you for recognizing the value of military service and the waste of some of the advanced countries of the world. Since Obama was elected to office, U.S. military pensions have been allowed to fall behind a couple percent. From 2009 to 2011, CPI has been -.4, 1.6 and 3.2 and military pensions stayed flat from 2008 to 2011. In 2012, we were given a 2.6% increase. It'll probably stay flat for the next couple of years. And I think the CPI for this year is going to be a shocker for some. And beginning 1 Jan of 2013, we'll be paying a little bit more for our health care. Based on the number of cry-babies I worked with while active duty, I would have thought the VA lobbyists would have been picketing the white house by now, but I'm glad to see they're not.

Bobby, I'll back off since you're backing off. You must be able to understand my defensiveness given our history. I'm not quite sure, but I have a sense that some people are starting to realize the *truth* of some matters. Thank you for allowing me back in. Go back and read the conversation I was having with Reed. (he said 100% tax bracket on $1B and "some" tax bracket from $2M to $1B) The data only goes to $10M. Go ahead and do the math on what a 100% tax bracket on $2M and above would do to the deficit. (158,056,386,000 + 84,462,502,000 + 204,322,325,000). And the dirty little secret in what Romney/Ryan are campagning on (simplify/broaden) is not only the extremely rich will pay a lot more (which is what the liberals want), the middle class, depending on your recent financial decisions may pay a little more or may pay a little less, and the Earned Income Credit checks will be a bit smaller. Don't ask me for specifics. Romney has stated he wants to lower the tax rates across the board and AND AND AND reduce or remove some deductions and PLACE A CAP on total deductions. The house and senate must work out the details. The liberals are currently focussing on the "lower the tax rates for everybody" and calling it a $5T tax cut for the rich since the math doesn't work out and not mentioning anything at all about the second part of the statement. The liberals will soon claim Romney is trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor because we must also address some cuts to social programs. And again, keep in mind, these are 2009 numbers. The current numbers are worse, they just haven't been made public yet.