Further 2007 Federal spending analysis

Since my last post caused such an outcry of comments on Digg, I think we should compare some
of the data and look at the priorities. It should be quite interesting and should prove out even
more of Dr. Paul's ideas for reduction in the Federal government.

Again, all of the number quoted from Wikipedia; I'm not making any of this up (although someone may
have, but the wiki is pretty well policed..)

Let's look at debt repayment:

This article by Mike Hewitt at Dollardaze shows we owe $3.85 trillion (45%) of all national debt to
the Federal Reserve. Wikipedia says we will be paying only $243.7 billion to interest on debt
and I assume that is spread across all of it; not just to the Fed.
Check out Mike's article; it is very enlightening: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article1571.html
All of his numbers are referenced for the convenience of the Digg naysayers.

Now let's compare that to the 2007 expenditures for some other things:

• $72.6 billion (+5.8%) - Veterans' benefits
• $89.9 billion (+1.3%) - Education and training (I assume this is education in general)
• $26.8 billion (+28.7%) - Community and regional development
• $1.1 billion (+47.6%) - Energy
• $33.1 billion (+5.7%) - Natural resources and environment
• $223.5 total
  

All of these combined are still less than what we pay on our debt and a little over half ($243 *.45 =$109) of
what we pay to the Federal Reserve alone! One other note; Japan owns around $600 billion
of our debt themselves...

Now where would we be if we had a gold standard and no Federal credit; no Federal Reserve.
I think Dr. Paul has the right idea. Money (credit) could not be conjured from thin air and the
Federal government would have to control spending.