Just some interesting stats. US GDP: 14.2 Trillion US Population: 304 Million US Tax Payers: 138 Million ================== $100K GDP/Tax Payer Looks good eh? Government Employees Payroll Average ========== ======== ======== ======= Federal 2,768,886 186 Billion $67052 State 4,362,688 225 Billion $51507 Local Gov 12,305496 589 Billion $47852 ==================================== Total 19,437,070 1 Trillion $51407 14% of all tax payers work for your government. Avg Gov employee earns 50% of GDP / tax payer. Military Personnel Budget Average ========= ======== ========= ======== Personnel 3315400 664 Billion $200277 2.5% of all tax payers are in the military. 2 x GDP/tax Payer is budgeted for each person 16.5 % of all tax payers work directly for the government. Just to make the Government Payroll and provide for our military our government must collect $1000 per month in taxes from each and every tax payer. That's $12K in taxes out of the average $24K income per tax payer. Income Tax is one visible component the other taxes are being collected through the plethora of transactional taxes.. Property, Sales, Vehicle, Payroll, gasoline, Tolls etc... And many other taxes are collected through baffling and ingenious mechanisms far beyond my feeble mental capabilities to comprehend. Don't let them fool you with smoke and mirrors. 50% of each tax payers' total wages is what our government requires to operate.