The Birth Tax

The party that traditionally has defended us from deficit spending and inflation and all that stuff has found a conflict between that mission and its other one, making life easier for the rich. You knew all that. But since there is so much attention being paid to the Death Tax as a way of fulfilling one of these responsibilities, it's only fair to take a glance at the Birth Tax: the debt that every American acquires by the act of being born. MaxSpeak has kindly given us the data. If you wish, you can cut straight to the graph, showing the national debt bestowed on each newborn citizen over time, expressed in 2005 dollars (corrected for inflation, that is).

Technical note: Why call it a tax? Elementary bookkeeping principles: You add a financial liability to the books, it's a credit entry. The balancing debit entry can be the reduction of another financial liability (nope) or acquisition of a financial asset (nope) or an expense (yep, a tax payment).