A trillion here, a trillion there ...

... before you know it, you're talking real money. So it goes with President Bush's 2006 budget proposal.

$2.5 trillion. Whew. If I'm figuring this right (my calculator starts spitting out "E" and "+" when I try to do it straight, so I'm cipherin' with pen and paper and toes), that comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of $8,300 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

The average family size in the US is 3.14 persons (2000 census), so this budget reflects federal government spending of about $26,062 per family.

The average family income is $56,640 (1999 HHS Survey), so basically we're spending 46% of the average family's household income on the federal government alone. That excludes state government. And local government. And little trivialities like food, clothing and shelter. And, unless I'm mistaken, the other 15% that the feds take for Social Security and Medicare.

How close to 100% do we have to get before government is too big?

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