An American Legal firm has put the US budget problems into perspective. The situation currently is:
* US income is - $2,170,000,000,000
* Federal Budget - $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt - $1,650,000,000,000
* National debt - $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts - $38,500,000,000
To understand it better let's remove 8 zeros from the figures and pretend this is the household budget for the Jones family.
* Annual family income - $21,700
* Amount of money the Jones family spent - $38,200
* Amount of new debt added to the credit card - $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card - $142,710
* Household budget cut by $385
At the conclusion of well publicised debate in the US congress the result was to cut the budget by $385. Clearly this was not enough and consequently the US AAA Rating was downgraded to AA+.
