=1Kerby Anderson

Arthur MacWaters has a chart many people are forwarding to others. The title of his chart is “National Budgets vs. Combined US Fraud + Debt Service.” I have cited it on my radio program, but seeing the chart has an even greater impact.

The top line shows the U.S. budget, which is the largest budget in the world. The next line is the budget for China. The third line is the U.S. fraud + debt service. Under that are the budgets of Germany, Japan, France, and others. In other words, the fraud in the U.S. coupled with the interest on the debt is larger than the budget of every other country in the world, except China.

The figures for the budgets of the countries seem to be accurate, so where does he get the figures of fraud and debt? Interest on the debt is approximately $1 trillion. He also assumes that fraud is $1.5 trillion.

That number comes from Elon Musk, who estimated fraud at roughly 20 percent of the federal budget. Although most consider that percentage to be too high, the Treasury Secretary just put the estimate around 10 percent. That would still put the fraud and debt service figure higher than the budgets of China and Germany.

If you use the larger number by Arthur MacWaters, you see another disturbing relationship between fraud and income taxes. They are nearly the same. Put another way, our income taxes essentially just cover the amount of fraud and debt service in America. Of course, the U.S. does bring in other revenue through tariffs and corporate taxes.

While the estimate for fraud may be too high, his point is still relevant. Essentially our income taxes have become a slush fund for waste and fraud, along with overspending by previous administrations. It does put the latest fraud revelations in perspective.