Congress passed a cut on the Social Security tax in 2010, effective January 1st of 2011. Most people didn't even recognize the increase in their take-home pay.
No one truly knows what the full impact of the downgrade will mean; we are in unprecedented territory. The stock market is plummeting as I write this. For sure, it will mean an increase in interest rates on debt issued by the US, which in turn, means an increase in interest rates for the rest of us.
Saving for your child's education is something some people start when their child is born, which isn't a bad idea. It's always good to get a head start, especially when considering inflation. Over the past several years tuition inflation has been more than double general inflation.
The gas tax is a federal tax currently at 18.4 cents a gallon -- and you thought gasoline was expensive enough as it is! What might you wonder is this for? It is for the construction and maintenance of our nation's highways.
There's going to come a time in all our lives when we can no longer work, whether that be physically or mentally, or both. That's the time when our investments should be generating enough income to live on. That's why we need to get out of debt so we can start saving for retirement.
Many ask the difference between the deficit and the national debt. The deficit is the yearly amount the government spends greater than it's revenues. (If the government spends less, then there is a urplus.) The national debt, on the other hand, is the accumulation of all the deficits.