Funding Government by the Minute

Antony Davies has a creative way to explain the deficit in a new Learn Liberty video. Last year, the government took in $2.2 trillion. It spent about $3.8 trillion, or $434 million per hour. At that rate, $2.2 trillion is enough to fund the government from January to the end of July.

Abolishing NASA, the entire U.S. military, all federal funding for police and fire protection, courts, prisons, education, transportation, shuttering Congress and the White House, and a whole lot more besides only gets us to December 16.

In other words, if the only remaining federal spending was on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and debt interest, we still wouldn’t have a balanced budget.

The lesson is that the government should stop making promises that the laws of mathematics won’t allow it to keep.

Watch the video below: