"Today Truth in Accounting (TIA), a think tank that analyzes government financial reporting, released its annual Financial State of the Union report. This report analyzes the audited financial report of the United States government for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2021.
This year’s report shows that the U.S. government’s financial condition worsened by more than $10 trillion in 2021. The United States needs $133 trillion to pay its bills. The majority of this debt can be attributed to $58.1 trillion in Medicare promises and $45.4 trillion in Social Security. These are promises that have been made to our citizens, but the government has not set any money aside to fund them. Other contributing factors include military and civilian retirement benefits, publicly held debt, and other liabilities.
Not surprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the fiscal health of the federal government last year. Just like all the state and local governments, the federal government took on extra costs and had to borrow more money to deal with the pandemic.
In 2021 the U.S. federal government spent $7.4 trillion on health and human services, defense and veterans affairs, Social Security, interest, education, and other expenses. The federal government received $4.3 trillion in revenue made up of individual income tax and withholding taxes, corporate taxes and excise, estate, gift taxes, as well as other revenue. Five percent of all revenue collected through taxes went to pay down the interest on the current debt.
The Financial State of the Union report awards the U.S. government an F grade and calculates a Taxpayer Burden of $836,000. This means that to pay off the $133 trillion debt at the end of the fiscal year 2021 and to have enough money to pay promised benefits, each federal taxpayer would have to pay $836,000.
“The deterioration of the federal financial condition is more than alarming,” says Sheila Weinberg, founder and CEO of Truth in Accounting. “While Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen highlights our current fiscal path is ‘unsustainable’ we continue to go down it.”
The Financial State of the Union report is an in-depth study of the audited financial reports of the United States government. Data for this report was derived from the financial report of the U.S. government.
Founded in 2002, Truth in Accounting is dedicated to educating and empowering citizens with understandable, reliable, and transparent government financial information. Sheila Weinberg is a Certified Public Accountant with more than 40 years of experience in the field."
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