Finally,you're keeping your money

Cost of Government Day 2009 has arrived on August 12th,day 224 of the year and 26 days later than last year.This means on average 61.34% of your gross income was spent to meet the costs imposed by your government.This includes the spending and regulatory burden at the federal,state and local levels.Check out the report at Americans for Tax Reform.

President Obama has blown away the previous record date in 1982 of July 20th by 23 days!Federal spending accounts for 111 days.State and local spending accounts for 49 days.Federal regulations add 42 days and state and local regulations tacked on 23 more.These are all averages from across the country.

In Michigan,we fell from 20th in 2008 to 28th in 2009.Our COGD is August 7th meaning you worked 219 days to pay for these costs so the good news is we at least beat the national average of August 12th.Hooray!

These are preliminary numbers and will most certainly be revised at a later date.With the health insurance debate underway,cap and trade still pending,the costs of all the Presidents' czars and any other unknowns,you can bank on these dates pushing even further back.More to come...