50,000 Deaths and the Democrat Promise

With the government shutdown, Democrat politicians are in rare form these days.  

The talking points of the Left this week are that the shutdown fight is necessary, or 50,000 people will die, and 15 million people will lose health coverage, and 20 million will see their health insurance premiums double. 

Politicians always like using superlatives; it makes them feel important.  

And there’s no time like a government shutdown for speaking in superlatives. 

Even without exaggerating, the numbers they have to work with are enormous. The federal government employs about 3 million people, making it the nation’s largest employer, almost double the size of Walmart’s 1.5 million, the nation’s largest private sector employer.  

The federal government currently spends about $7 trillion per year, while taking in only about $5 trillion in revenue (“only $5 trillion.”  Twenty years ago, could you imagine the federal government taking in $5 trillion – and it not being enough?).  This creates an annual deficit – not the total annual debt, just this one year’s contribution to it – of about $2 trillion per year.