The Rising Tide: Taxation

This is not a political post per se but the theme of inexorably rising taxes has been a focus of this blog. For planning purposes.

We learn today that Cost of Government Day, a calendar date by which the average American is deemed to have paid for the cost of government falls on August 19th this year, the latest date ever recorded. The entire report of the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation is in the link above.

From the Report:

Cost of Government Day: Trends
Cost of Government Day (COGD) falls 8 days later in 2010 than last year’s revised date of August 11. In 2010, the average American will have to work an additional 51 days out of the year to pay off his or her share of the cost of government compared to 2000, when COGD was June 29.

In fact, between 1977 and 2008, COGD has never fallen later than July 20. 2010 marks only the second year that this has happened—2009 being the first. The difference between 2008 and 2009—from July 16 to August 11—was a full 26 days, spurred primarily by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) that created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment
Act of 2009 (ARRA).

A look at methodology is below:

The Cost of Government is determined by adding the figures for government spending (federal, state and local expenditures) and an estimate of the cost of government regulations (both on the federal
and state level). The total cost of government is then divided by an estimated Net National Product to determine the percentage of national income consumed by government. This percentage is applied to the 365.25 weighted calendar year to determine the date of Cost of Government Day.