Deficit Perspective

I thought it would be nice to be able to see a bit of perspective.

Everyone here in Michigan knows that the state is flat broke. Governor Granholm is hinting at a 20% reduction in the size of state government, school districts just took a huge hit on their per pupil foundation grant, prisons are closing, police are being laid off, scholarships have been slashed, and local governments are taking it on the chin because Lansing has chopped its support.

All of these cuts, and countless more, have occurred or may occur in the near future because the state faced a nearly $2 billion debt when it had to present a balanced budget for the upcoming fiscal year and because tax revenues, despite tax and fee increases, are continuing to plummet. If not for the bailout money that Granholm diverted from stimulus projects, the state would have had to make much deeper cuts.

$2 billion in its annual budget does sound like a lot of money. Good grief, how much is that these days, about 250,000,000 packs of smokes?

Here comes the promised perspective...in the month of October alone, the federal government racked up a deficit of $176.36 billion dollars.

The good news is that at least it was a 31 day month.

So, for each day in October, including Saturdays and Sundays, the federal government went more that twice as far in debt as the state of Michigan did the entire year of 2008, a year that saw Michigan nearly paralyzed because of funding issues.

We are so screwed.