How your taxes are spent

[Lucid]

So, in keeping with the 'what would you change' theme from phej's thread about the constitution, here (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) is a graphic that lays out how our federal government spends its money (our money). It's a pretty big graphic, so you might find it helpful to increase or decrease how large your browser displays it (if you have that option) to zoom in on some of the smaller items and zoom out to see the big picture. I'm using Opera which has a handy zoom percentage drop menu in the lower right hand corner. For firefox users you can zoom in or out by selecting the option in the 'view' menu. If you're using Safari or IE you should be ashamed.

The question is how would you change how the government spends the money. What programs would you increase funding for and what programs would you decrease funding for.

For the lazy I have included another, less interesting, not as cool and not as detailed pie chart:
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And:
Just as an interesting aside, about 44 cents of every dollar paid for taxes is spent on the military. Also, the military spending by the US accounts for nearly half of all military spending world wide. Notice in the totally awesome and sweet graphic I linked, the ENTIRE left half is devoted to military spending, while the right half is taken up by everything else.

(PS - for the sake of conversation lets assume that taxation on the part of the federal government is legitimate. There's already a thread about whether or not it's right.)

[Dzepxich]

Close the Federal Reserve, return the power to create money to the Congress. Interest payments go to 0.

Close all foreign military bases, return control of the National Guard to the individual states, abolish the Army.

End all foreign aid, I don't believe the federal government has the right to tax people and give away our money.

I wouldn't increase funding for anything on a federal level.

That's a few things right off the top of my head.

[aku chi]

Lucid, your provided pie chart (not the link) doesn't include Social Security, Medicare, or Medicade which are most definitely paid with federal taxes. It also questionably merges defense spending with some of the interest payments on our federal debt (those attributed to past wars, so it claims). The actual percentage of federal revenue spent on defense is less than 25% if my memory serves me correctly (only slightly more than Social Security).

With regards to your question, are we working under the unfortunate constraint that total federal expenditures and taxes cannot be changed? If so, I wouldn't be comfortable making any spending changes. Otherwise, I would like to reduce government expenditures in general to reduce the national debt that costs us billions of dollars in interest each year. To this end, I would like to abolish the federal Department of Education and the billions of dollars it wastes (seriously, our states are responsible for schooling). I would enjoy reducing all other forms of government spending (yes, even "defense"). But, short of a dictatorship or revolution, that will never happen.

[Lucid]

Lucid, your provided pie chart (not the link) doesn't include Social Security, Medicare, or Medicade which are most definitely paid with federal taxes. It also questionably merges defense spending with some of the interest payments on our federal debt (those attributed to past wars, so it claims). The actual percentage of federal revenue spent on defense is less than 25% if my memory serves me correctly (only slightly more than Social Security).

I believe the 19% on health care would inculde Medicare and Medicade. Social Security may be under response to poverty. But you're right, I hadn't noticed it is not explicitly labeled. This graph is obviously substandard. I apologize.

However, I think your statement about military spending is certainly debatable. I would say that debt attributed to past wars should be counted as military spending. Just because we're paying those bills later doesn't mean it wasn't for a war. Provided the amount isn't being counted twice, that is.

The following is from reuters (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.):
-- Amount of total world military spending spent by U.S.: 47 percent
[Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation]

-- Total U.S. military expenditures requested for 2008: $644 billion
-- Total military expenditures of the 10 next top spending countries combined:
$446.1 billion
[Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Includes China, Russia, U.K.,
France, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, India and Brazil, Feb. 5,
2007]

-- U.S. military base budget in 2001: $297.1 billion
-- U.S. pending military base budget 2008, not including Iraq and Afghanistan:
$481.4 billion
[White House Office of Management and Budget, Feb. 5, 2007]

-- U.S. budget spent on military not including Iraq in 2007: 50 percent
-- U.S. budget spent on education in 2007: 6.2 percent
[White House Office of Management and Budget, Feb. 6, 2006.]

This information is almost 2 years old. Our military expenditures have only increased since then.

With regards to your question, are we working under the unfortunate constraint that total federal expenditures and taxes cannot be changed? If so, I wouldn't be comfortable making any spending changes.

Yes, this is just reallocating the money. Or you can choose particular programs to spend less on or particular ones to spend more on, it doesn't have to balance out. But just saying "less on everything" is a lame answer. Of course, there's no law against being lame. :p

[Valiyn]

I learned from this graph there is an Office of Government Ethics.....Just kinda hidden in the mess and very, very small. I think it might have been a figment of my imagination....

[Corbu]

Reverse spending percentages on "Response to Poverty" and "Education & Jobs".
Reverse spending percentages on "Health Care" and "Science, Energy and Environment"
We spend far to much money with no returns. By flipping them positive offset could be reached in a relatively short time frame allowing for reduction in both Poverty and Health Care by reaping the benefits of the investment in people and materials (Education, Jobs, Science, Energy and Environment)
Like it or not there are two wars going on, Military spending stays as is until sustainable resolution is reached.
Reduce spending 2% across all other categories to pay interest and principal on debt.

[themuzicman]

For those of you wanting an accurate picture of the federal budget:

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[Plane Stress]

I think that this thing is a little biased... (almost half the graph focuses on very specific military expenditures-they might as well list the amount of money congress spends on paper clips) but still... why is it that practically every good program got a budget cut and everything we don't need (36% increase in border protection) got a budget increase? Assuming that a similar budget to this proposal got passed in 2008...

[nacht]

For those of you wanting an accurate picture of the federal budget:

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If you want an accurate representation of the federal budget, for the love of all that is holy do not use a pie chart. Especially not one dependent on color coding. You are also mixing discretionary and entitlement spending and calling that "more accurate," which isn't really the case, just perhaps more complete.

[Lucid]

For those of you wanting an accurate picture of the federal budget:

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It's a little difficult to distinguish between the different blues on this chart. But use whatever reference you'd like, the purpose of this thread isn't to limit you to the information I provided. I just thought the graphic was cool and useful because it's so detailed.

How would you reallocate spending based on your pie chart?

(god, you pigeonhole like it's nobody's business!)


Also, nacht's right.

[nacht]

That's a few things right off the top of my head.

...and when you establish your own colony on the moon you may do those things. In the meantime, however, doing such would destroy (entirely) the modern economy and--even if we were to set that as a goal--fails to address a reasonable set of parameters for how we might approach the problem over the next five to ten years.

That problem--how you reconfigure the budget while aiming for your utopian society--is a far more interesting question.

[Profit]

That problem--how you reconfigure the budget while aiming for your utopian society--is a far more interesting question.

- Increase spending on health care (so that everyone can have access to medical care, create public option to drag down cost over the long run).
- Increase educational spending (so that everyone receives quality k-12 education, expand community colleges for higher education, and increase the amount of grants available so that low income students can attend four year colleges and graduate school)
- Increase investment in alternative energy and upgrade the country's electrical grid.
- Increase spending on infastructure.
- Increase NASA/science budget
- Increase SEC budget.
- Increase EPA, National Parks budget.
- Increase spending on diplomacy with the aim of creating a NATO like alliance in Asia with Japan, Korea, Australia, India and.......I'm gonna get flamed for this....China. They are an economic world power now, their interest in maintain global stability is as strong as ours so let them help pay for it. I would also work to encourage the creation of a EU common defense force capable of helping to maintain global stability as well.
- Begin to decrease military budget gradually as China and the EU takes larger role in global affairs, close down bases in Europe etc etc.
- Legalize pot and tax the hell out of it.
- Cut pork barrel spending.
- Decrease military aid to Israel.

[reb]

cut all foreign aid; you can't buy friends, and we have people in poverty in this country. new orleans is sinking into the sea; major infrastructure is in danger of failing. we gave billions to indonesia, after they chanted 'hooray, 9/11'. let them fix their own problems...all nations.

i can speak personally to the waste in military spending...it's godawful. on top of that, we had no business in iraq, or in bosnia, or previous invasions going back maybe 60 years. allow people to self determine; if they threaten us with nukes, a preemptive nuke strike will take care of that. it's cheaper than getting our young people killed and maimed (and they are among the best of our young people). use the military budget as israel does; simple, effective, non-high tech solutions, make every half able bodied person a soldier for 2 years.

phase out social security and medicare. offset this with a flat rate tax, which should leave those who can manage money enough to afford insurance and retirement. encourage iras/keoghs, and self investment by cutting/keeping the lower taxes on dividends. lower taxes on capital gains of investments. i know lots of middle class people who are in the stock/bond markets; between the threat of higher taxes and the market drop, they've been freaking out...their retiremnt income is in jeopardy.

cut the deduction for children. cut out the deduction for mortgages and debt. flat rate corporations like any other 'legal entity'.

provide no health care and no benefits for illegal aliens. revoke the 'born here, automatically a citizen' provisions...you drop a kid here, it's a citizen of nowhere. go home, go through the system to become a citizen.

make educational spending a responsibilty of those with children; when parents directly pay for their schools, they will start to demand better schools. otherwise, they can home school. i'm pretty much convinced from some of the home schooled i've seen, they have better education than the public schools provide. the parents are forced to deal with discipline, and not palm it off on some teacher who is constrained by the politically correct system. i'm getting no benefit from the large percentage of dummies the public school system is turning out. many of them can't make change, for gosh sake.

legalize prostitution, drugs and gambling (internet and otherwise). tax them at a flat rate, and make a flat rate income tax with the only exceptions for investments in retirement accounts and savings.

put congress under the same restraints as any other federal worker. i heard a congressman propose this he other night.

stop all lobbying, except by email or letter from private citizens...this is where the influence really flows...under the table. cut off the money, we might get some people in congress who would vote their conscience, instead of their 'markers'.

tax the united nations and all foreign embassies at the same rate as citizens and corporations. do away with diplomatic immunity. if they can't act right (or ours can't act right) then stay the hell home.

track down the huge number of people who are working 'off the books'. nail them to the wall. i don't have a problem with 'off the books' if everyone can do it, but it's selective, and i don't believe in selectivity for those of us who pay our taxes, and others skipping out. make no exemptions for taxes...if you make $5 in one year, you pay the same flat rate everyone else does.

when you cut the tax code down to size, you're going to lay off a huge number of cpas and lawyers. we need someone to repair dams, repair bridges...they can get a job that doesn't require a manicure.

i bet i could slobber on about this for some time, but i'm stopping...enough for now.