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9. “In FY 2010, Congress approved more than 9,000 earmarks costing taxpayers close to $16 billion.” See U.S. Government Executive Office, “The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform: The Moment of Truth,” December 2010, p. 27.

10. See Table 3.2 of the Office of Management and Budget Historical Tables.

11. There is a pervasive belief that foreign aid eats up an enormous share of the budget, so that if we would simply stop our foreign assistance to foreign tyrants, we’d close much of the gap. The confusion about foreign aid is breathtaking. In a November 2010 opinion survey, Americans were asked their “hunch” about the percentage of the federal budget that goes to foreign aid. The median answer was 25 percent. The respondents were then asked what would be an “appropriate” percentage. The median response was 10 percent. The correct answer in fact is that foreign aid accounts for 0.8 percent of the budget (and 0.2 percent of GDP). The public is off by a factor of thirty times. While it demands a “cut” in foreign aid, its target of 10 percent of the budget would actually require an increase in aid of twelve times! (World Public Opinion, “American Public Opinion on Foreign Aid,” November 30, 2010.)

12. The “Medicaid and Related” category comprises the following: Medicaid, Refundable Premium Assistance Tax Credit, Reinsurance and Risk Adjustment Program Payments, and Payments to Reduce Cost Sharing in Qualified Health Plans. The “Other” category comprises the following: Other Health, Children’s Health Insurance, Family and Other Support Assistance, Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Making Work Pay Tax Credit, Payment to States for Foster Care, Housing Assistance, and Other. (Office of Management and Budget Historical Table 8.5.)

13. Neil King, Jr., and Scott Greenberg, “Poll Shows Budget-Cuts Dilemma,” Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2011.

14. Means-tested spending is aid that is provided to individuals who meet certain low income qualifications.

15. The FY 2011 budget estimate for TANF programs was approximately $17.4 billion. The total outlays for Means Tested programs in FY 2011 was approximately $498 billion (OMB Budget Table 8.2), and the U.S. GDP is projected to be $15.1 trillion. (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: FY 2012 Budget,” p. 305.)

16. See Office of Management and Budget Historical Budget Table 11.3 for the category “Family Support Payments to States and TANF,” divided by GDP in Historical Table 1.2.

17. See Office of Management and Budget Historical Table 8.7.

18. U.S. Government Executive Office, “The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform: The Moment of Truth,” December 2010.

19. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective/Historic Statistics (Paris: Development Centre of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2006), p. 264.

20. Calculated using total federal receipts from Office of Management and Budget Historical Table 1.2 and total tax collection per OECD statistical database.

21. New Hampshire collects taxes on dividends and interest income only.

22. Charles M. Tiebout, “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures,” Journal of Political Economy 64, no. 5 (October 1956), pp. 416–24.

23. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Trends in Political Values and Core Attitudes: 1987–2009,” May 21, 2009, p. 131.

24. See Office of Management and Budget Historical Table 12.1.

25. Data for calculations from Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, “How Progressive Is the US Federal Tax System? A Historical and International Perspective,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, no. 1 (Winter 2007), pp. 3–24; Congressional Budget Office, “Average Federal Taxes by Income Group,” June 2010.

26. See Office of Management and Budget, “A New Era of Responsibility,” February 2009, p. 9, and Edward N. Wolff, “Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze—an Update to 2007,” Levy Economics Institute