Is America worth it?

It’s terrifying to consider the sheer size of the federal government, especially in terms of dollars. So, I took some numbers and did some fun crunching. How much, I asked, does it cost the average American in taxes to live in this country? To be complete, I added in state and county taxes as well – I used my state and my county as the source.

Here’s what I got:

Federal Budget	Per Person		Population
$2,600,000,000,000	$9,285.71	a Year	280,000,000
$7,303,370,787	$26.08	a Day
$304,307,116	$1.09	an Hour
$5,071,785	$0.02	a Minute
$84,530	$0.00	a Second
Colorado Budget	Per Person		Population
$7,059,000,000	$1,641.63	a Year	4,300,000
$19,828,652	$4.61	a Day
$826,194	$0.19	an Hour
$13,770	$0.00	a Minute
$229	$0.00	a Second
Jefferson County Budget	Per Person		Population
$548,000,000	$1,040.24	a Year	526,801
$1,539,326	$2.92	a Day
$64,139	$0.12	an Hour
$1,069	$0.00	a Minute
$18	$0.00	a Second
Combined	Per Person
$2,607,607,000,000.00	$11,967.58	a Year
$7,324,738,764.04	$33.62	a Day
$305,197,448.50	$1.40	an Hour
$5,086,624.14	$0.02	a Minute
$84,777.07	$0.00	a Second

Basically, what I found in these very rough numbers is that (in 2007) the average American (including men, women and children) pays about $33.62 a day to live where I live. Since I have a family of 5, my costs are more like $168.08 a day.

Naturally, each of us pays different proportional taxes and these numbers are only averages, but it’s a fascinating thing to know that there’s a $26 daily cover charge just to live in America.