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So You Wanna Be An American?

2007-06-17

I think the following should be posted at our borders, in all languages. Then again, once you read it, you may decide to go live in another country yourself.

So as I near closer to filing bankruptcy, there are a few things one has to do as required by the new laws passed as of October 2005. One of the requirements prior to filing is taking a debt counseling class which includes certification that you passed. After your bankruptcy is discharged, you have to take a Debtor Education course within 45 days.

So this morning I decided to get this part of it out of the way. It’s not difficult but you have to pay attention. All I’ll say is they may know about debt counseling, but they don’t know how to phrase a question correctly. I understand the theory to make it a trick question, but there are ways of doing that without a double negative.

However, that’s not what I want to share with you. As you progress through the class the main function is to educate and provide some debt relief solutions. One way they do this is a modified means test, and they examine your income and your expenses. That then is compared against two separate plans outside of bankruptcy. On the far right side of the plan are the national standards listed and the percentage of your take home pay that consumers should not be exceeding. That is what I want to share with you, so you can look at your own standard of living and see if you are falling within the “national guidelines.”

To make your own spreadsheet utilize all income (net) that is your disposable income. I’ll do this in columns so you can cut and paste into Excel. To get the percentage divide the total for that section by the amount of your net income. Format into percent, using 2 decimal places.

OVERVIEW OF NET INCOME

List all sources:

Salary/Wages/Tips

Social Security

Military Pay

Pension Plan/Retirement

Interest Income

Alimony/Child support

Real Estate/Rent

Dividends (investments)

Unemployment/Food Stamps

Royalties

Other

Total Spouse Income

Total Income

Its easiest to do this based on monthly income, but you can break it down by weekly, monthly, bi monthly or yearly. Just make sure to divide your columns correctly. Now moving onto expenses, again it’s easier to base this on a monthly amount or if you know your weekly amount, multiply by 52, then divide by 12.

Your standard living expenses should be no more than 20% of your net income.
STANDARD MONTHLY LIVING EXPENSES NATIONAL STANDARD

Food (Groceries, lunches, etc)

Household Items

Clothing and laundry

Personal Care/Medical (products & services)

Total Standard Living Expenses

MONTHLY TRANSPORTATION EXPENSES NATIONAL STANDARD

Your transportation expenses should be no more than 20% of your net income.
First Vehicle payment

Other Vehicle payment

Gasoline, oil & repairs

Public transportation & parking

Total Transportation Expenses

Your housing expenses should be no more than 35% of your net income.
MONTHLY HOUSING EXPENSES NATIONAL STANDARD

Mortgage (with Taxes) or Rent

Home Insurance & Dues

Utilities

Total Monthly Housing Expenses

Your savings & investments should be no more than 5% of your net income.
MONTHLY SAVINGS & INVESTMENTS NATIONAL STANDARD

Savings

Investments

Total Monthly Savings & Investments

Your miscellaneous expenses should be no more than 5% of your net income.
MISCELLANEOUS EXPENSES NATIONAL STANDARD

Other

Other

Other

Total Miscellaneous Expenses

Outstanding Unsecured Debt NATIONAL STANDARD

Your debt payments should be no more than 15% of your net income.
Medical Bills

Credit Cards

Other Debts

Total Unsecured Debt

So there you have it. That’s how the government looks at your paycheck and what you should be spending to live the American Dream. I think it would be a fine idea to give this same worksheet to our constituents, and potential presidential candidates and see how well they follow the guidelines. As a matter of fact, when they are fighting about the national debt in the trillions- all as a deficit thank you, let’s make them adhere to the standards.

This could work if we went with a flat tax across the board, instead of income tax, just a consumption tax. Except no double dipping to the consumer. Screw the state and local taxes. Say the flat tax is set at 10% on every purchase. The Federal government can receive 6%, then the remaining can be set at 3% to the State and 1% to your local district, divided equally based on an average. Too difficult to track where the sales took place and who should get what. Here’s your budget America. Work with it, and while you’re at it find a way to decrease your spending.

Did I forget to mention, throughout the “counseling” they have all nice and shiny ideas for you to cut your personal spending? If you notice on these categories, there isn’t one thing left for vacations, gift giving, entertainment, etc. I guess we are supposed to be drones. Just little worker bees, building the hive, going flower to flower, make the honey, and die. We don’t even get to screw the queen, or reproduce. Reminds me of the old SNL Killer Bees skit with John Belushi (while watching him in bed at night..Jimmy’s buzzing off, Jimmy’s buzzing off!) Ah the seventies.

But now back to the present and recent past.

One of the reasons the libertarian party for years pushed for our country to declare itself bankrupt and eliminate the national debt and reduce the taxes on our income, is because there is no way we can continue to fool ourselves with tax cuts and increased spending. We’re in the red..deep red. So how can you balance a budget that is only in the negative? Different shades of red?

Our government isn’t accountable. Wouldn’t you love to see a simple spreadsheet, worked out all nice and pretty with how they are spending our tax dollars? Ok, here it is. I pulled this info from http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/sheets/hist03z2.xls and an MSNBC report, but I decided to make it easy to read. Remember these figures are based roughly on every thousand dollars collected of your federal income tax.

Dollars per thousand spent

      
       

Social Security

  

$206.60

 

Defense Spending

  

$196.50

 

Health Care

  

$219.40

 

Interest on Treasury debt

  

$122.20

 
     

$744.70

INCOME SECURITY

      

Unemployment Insurance

  

$12.70

 

Food & Nutrition programs

  

$20.30

 

Housing Assistance

  

$14.40

 

Retirement for Fed workers

  

$37.00

 
     

$84.40

EDUCATION

      

Colleges & Universities

  

$19.00

 

Primary & Secondary

 

$15.00

Worker training programs in educate the masses

$2.70

 

Social Services

 

$6.20


     

$42.90

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

      

General Science & research

  

$3.40

 

Space Program

  

$5.50

 
     

$ 8.90

TRANSPORTATION COST

      

Ground

  

$ 17.00

 

Air

  

$ 6.80

 

Water

  

$ 2.50

 
     

$26.30

LAND COST

      

Agriculture

  

$9.80

 

Environment

  

$12.40

 
     

$ 22.20

JUSTICE ADMINISTRATION

      

Fed Law enforcement

  

$ 7.50

 

Maintain Courts

  

$ 3.80

 

Maintain Prisons

  

$ 2.30

 
     

$ 13.60

Disaster relief/insurance

  

$ 17.40

 
     

$ 17.40

Community/regional development

  

$ 3.20

 
     

$ 3.20

International/Humanitarian

  

$6.30

 

Int'l affairs/ambassador housing

 

$3.20

 

Security outside US borders

  

$2.90

 

Management fee Us Govt (what we pay the gov't to do the bookkeeping)

  

$6.90

 
     

$ 19.30

Federal Tax Dollars spent

 

$982.90

 

So there you have it. Not all of that money came from your incomes taxes, by the way. This year individuals will pay about $1.2 trillion of the $2.7 trillion federal spending, while corporations will pay $342 billion. The rest comes from Social Security taxes ($873 billion); excises taxes ($57 billion) and other taxes and fees ($98 billion.)

For everything else, there’s U.S. Treasury debt (remember the $122.00 per thousand you spend on interest on this debt? It goes back to around the Revolutionary War)

We also need to be aggressive in going after money that is owed to us from our foreign friends. Let’s take them at their word when they are going to pay us, if not? We adopt some National Collectors that call overseas to collect the debt owed. Talk about a commission check. Nothing like a collection call set on autodial every few hours to get some much needed funds floating back into our economy.

Well, so ends today’s class in So You Wanna Be An American? Like I’ve stated before, I have no problems with immigrants coming to this country, just put them on the books.

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crazylady (2007-06-17)
Very good post, I too filed bankruptcy on March, we filed Chapter 13 yes you have to go through credit counciling classes, you have to list all those you mentioned and yes there is no place for OH MY, my car broke down, I need new tires, any other expense that might come up. We are still in the red and our attorney won't let us file 7, as a matter of fact she increased our payments by $110 a month. We were paying $270 now we are paying $395. We don't make enough to keep up with our normal bills let alone any problems that should arise. Oh, when you go to court you also have to go through another credit counciling class. If you don't take it at that time it will cost you $50. Wait a minute I filed bankruptcy because I couldn't pay my bills and yet I get a charge, let alone the credit counciling you must take prior to filing costs you as well. Good luck

surrogate (2007-06-17)
great post... I'd personally love to see a flat tax... maybe even a modified one... Nothing on fresh produce or minimally prepared foods and... hell, I'll even go fifteen percent on luxury stuff... but here's how that get's decided in my world. We VOTE on what constitutes luxuries by catagory. Boat's over 20 feet? Cars that cost over ...pick a figure... thirty grand? -stuff like that... but not on your convertible, I promise.

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