Reply To: Political Statements
As far as I have ever seen, the dept of Treasury does not and never has “generated” a dime.
Proof, please? Treasury’s Tax and Trade Bureau’s “Collect the Revenue Program,” which collects and audits excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco, generated over $300 in revenue for every dollar it spent in FY 2007 (scroll down to “Program Performance Measures”). To put that in dollars, the program ran on a budget of $44 million (which is tiny – the IRS budget is several orders of magnitude larger), and generated over $13.2 BILLION. We’ve earned the highest efficiency rating for government programs. I’m just sayin’.
Seriously, if Treasury stops collecting money, and we want to limit deficit spending, where would the money come from for defense, veteran affairs and entitlements, as McCain suggested? Actually, I retract the question, because the likelihood of that happening is probably close to nil.