Watching – Polapan
Harumph. I thought my AT&T bill was on the high side, but seems like my NSA bill trumps that, for usefulness…
Indeed, as the Washington Post revealed when it released portions of the so-called Black Budget, this year’s price tag on America’s spook infrastructure comes out to a whopping $52.6 billion.
This is, of course, a tremendous sum – more than double the size of the Department of Agriculture, more than triple the size of NASA; the list goes on… But, what really puts this number into perspective is its average cost to each American taxpayer, or what I would call the NSA and associated agencies’ “rent.”
Yes, the NSA’s rent, charged to every taxpayer living under its web of surveillance, comes out to an exorbitant $574 per year. If this is the price the federal government is charging American taxpayers to have their own privacy invaded, then I say the NSA’s rent is too damn high.
(click here to continue reading The NSA’s Rent Is Too Damn High | Cato @ Liberty.)
On the bright side, if you add in the 53,676,039 non-taxable returns (from 2011) – i.e., the Takers™ – that means we are only paying $361 a year for the privilege of having our personal information scooped up by the N.S.A. power-vacuum…
- 91694201- taxable returns
- 53676039 -non-taxable returns
- 145370240 – total returns
- $52,600,000,000 in NSA funding (estimated)
- $361.83 total
- $573.65 tax payers only