The Senate expected to give themselves and the rest of the federal government more money to avoid another shutdown at the end of the fiscal year (which is today). The fix is only proposed to last through the 11th of December however. I am speechless. Speaking of the cost of running a country, I grabbed this wall of numbers from some site a few months ago. While I have not validated the data, I believe the numbers to be accurate enough that some are worth consideration. Telling the story of the government running in the red, over 14% of our citizen are receiving food stamps, and almost 1% of our nation lives in prison–for starters.
While the government is spending more money, the tax basis collected from Mr. & Mrs. America is diminishing. Our nation’s workforce has declined 3.2% since 2000, and at the same time the median income of those who are employed has dropped 1.2%. That could explain why the percentage of our country’s citizens who have chosen to no longer work has increased 16.1% during the same period.
An interesting factoid regarding housing: the median price of a new home has increased almost 60% over the last 15 years. It would appear that the rich are getting richer and the gap between the haves and the have nots is widening. All the more reason to quit reading this blog and get back to work. 🙂
