In 2013, You Paid $574 to the NSA
Imagine being beaten to a pulp by a mafia hit-man. Your nose is broken and dribbling blood, your left eye is swollen shut, you may have broken ribs. Somehow, you manage to stand up. Just then, the hit-man produces an invoice for his services to the tune of $574. The only thing worse than being violently assaulted is being forced to pay for your own abuser’s time and effort. That’s what the NSA is like. According to a Cato blog post by Steve Hanke, professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, every American taxpayer is billed $574 per year to keep the NSA up and running.