Federal Budget

As economist Wilhelm Roepke observed, "The and the concentration of its power, exemplified in the predominance of the budget, have become a cancerous growth gnawing at the freedom and order of society and economy. Surely, no one has any illusions about what it means when the modern state increasingly—and most eagerly before elections, when the voter's favor is at stake—assumes the task of handing out security, welfare, and assistance to all and sundtry, favoring now this and now that group, and when people of all classes and at all levels, not excluding entrepreneurs, get into the habit of looking on the state as a kind of human providence." ¹ In the United States of America, the estimated federal tax and revenue receipts for fiscal year 2007 are $2.4 trillion. This anticipated income is derived from the following sources:

• $1.1 trillion (+12.1%) - Individual income tax
• $884.1 billion (+7.4%) - Social Security and other payroll taxes
• $260.6 billion (+15.5%) - Corporate income tax
• $74.6 billion (-1.3%) - Excise taxes
• $28.1 billion (+0.7%) - Customs duties
• $23.7 billion (-9.2%) - Estate and gift taxes
• $48.4 billion (+14.0%) - Other

The President's budget for 2007 totals $2.8 trillion. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures:

• $586.1 billion (+7.0%) - Social Security
• $466.0 billion (+4.0%) - Defense
• $394.5 billion (+12.4%) - Medicare
• $367.0 billion (+2.0%) - Unemployment and welfare
• $276.4 billion (+2.9%) - Medicaid and other health related
• $243.7 billion (+13.4%) - Interest on debt
• $89.9 billion (+1.3%) - Education and training
• $76.9 billion (+8.1%) - Transportation
• $72.6 billion (+5.8%) - Veterans' benefits
• $43.5 billion (+9.2%) - Administration of justice
• $33.1 billion (+5.7%) - Natural resources and environment
• $32.5 billion (-15.4%) - Foreign affairs
• $27.0 billion (+3.7%) - Agriculture
• $26.8 billion (+28.7%) - Community and regional development
• $25.0 billion (+4.0%) - Science and technology
• $20.1 billion (+11.4%) - General government
• $1.1 billion (-47.6%) - Energy

This is the amount that government spending exceeds total receipts:

• $224 billion (-9.2%)

This adds to the total public debt as September 2006 (end of the Fiscal year), 8.5 trillion. ²

1. Roepke, Wilhelm, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market, (South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions, 1960), p. 33.
2. "Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2007," White House Office of Management and Budget, 4 Jan. 2007, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/