First, Do Harm?

With 125 million households, spending averages $46k, regulations $13k, tax system $6k and excessive legal costs $5k, totaling about $70k. The median (half below, half above) is probably closer to $45k because of lower tax brackets, less complex returns, mandates, regulatory and legal burdens, but it's no wonder why income is so stagnant and why we borrow so much, government and private.

How much spending is wasted? Cato's survey of economists finds about 23%. The Office of Management and Budget has reported that 17% of federal spending has "results not demonstrated" plus 3% completely "ineffective". Citizens believe it's more like 40%, according to Gallup, which is unlikely.

Total waste per household? $1 trillion of spending is $8k. $700 billion for the code is $6k. $600 billion of wasted legal is $5k and $400 billion of regulatory is $3k, totaling $22k. Compare that annual loss to the one-time Enron loss of $70 billion and the media time spent on each. Why is the GDP not at 5-6% growth, why is there so much unemployment and underemployment and why is it too expensive to manufacture domestically if labor costs are not the problem? The capital is legislatively mandated away from more efficient investment by people elected by voters who are uninformed and mislead by the media.

We've placed ourselves into this semi-socialism under the banner of "fairness". Along with a "pro business" claim, the result is that every day we send $840 million net to China- $740 for products and $100(?) for loan interest, funding its communist-run military that sees us as the #1 threat. At $100/barrel, we sent $130 million to Venezuela (1.3 million barrels per day) and by being the largest purchaser in the world, we drove up profits on Venezuela's $100 million of sales to other nations and Iran's sales of $280 million, none to us (EIA). Our "government" ('to steer') is pro-actively harmful.