Questing for Atlantis

Today is Cost of Government Day for 2009.

For those not familiar with it, Cost of Government Day (COGD) is the day on which the average American has earned enough to pay for his or her share of the total costs of government. Unlike Tax Freedom Day, COGD doesn’t just include taxes, but more properly accounts for the costs of government spending and regulatory burdens.

This year it took Americans 224 days of work before they finally are able to start earning for themselves. As you can see, this is an appalling 26 days later than last year’s COGD and 23 days later than the previous all-time high of July 20 in 1982.

If you break down the components of COGD, 111 days went to federal spending, another 65 to regulatory burdens, and the last 49 days for state and local spending (note, I’m assuming the 1 day difference between the total and the parts is the product of rounding).

You can read the full report here – I highly recommend doing so, it’s excellently written and not only includes the COGD info, but also has a state by state breakdown and case studies, both at the national and state levels that help explain the massive jump in this year’s date.

In closing, a few other facts I worked out speaking with Monika Ciesielska, author of this year’s study:

• The total cost of government breaks down to about $20.8 billion per day.
• If the U.S. had kept spending levels at the point they were last year the money saved would be enough to buy every American man, woman, and child seven iPods each, with enough money left over to pick up 10 CDs or so in the iTunes store.
• More pragmatically, it would also be enough to pay for everyone’s groceries for the entire year.
• Marylanders, our state sucks pretty bad – we rank 44th in the nation and aren’t done paying for our government until August 21.
• Be glad however that we’re not New Jersey, the other state I’ve considered home. The Garden State ranks 49th and isn’t done till September 6. Just in time for them to hopefully vote Corzine out a little less than a month later.