Budget Cut Debate for the US 2011 Fiscal Year

It’s clear that the US population desire significant cuts in the US budget to reduce the escalating deficit.  Both parties have latched on to sensationalized catch phrases about reducing the budget.  First lets review some basic information.

In the Fiscal Year 2010 (FY2010), from Oct 2009 through Sept 2010, the US budget included:

• Mandatory Spending         = $2,009 billion
• Discretionary Spending   = $1,368  billion
• Income                                    = $2,163   billion
• Deficit (increase in debt) = $-1,293 billion (extracted from white house summary tables)
• Total Debt Sept 2010        = $13,562 billion

The trend:

from Wikipedia

Step 2 is to prioritize expenditures and communicate that priority to the legislators…

To see where your tax dollars are being spent: Where did my Tax Dollars go?