How Your Federal Tax Dollars Are Spent

[Mavric]

To answer the question, here is a “Taxpayer Receipt” showing how each $100 of taxes was spent, both for 2016 and five years earlier. It was prepared by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonpartisan nonprofit group in Washington that monitors federal spending. The group’s three chairmen are Republican Mitch Daniels, Democrat Leon Panetta and independent Tim Penny.

 

Looking at the list of expenditures, it is clear why some say the U.S. is a giant insurance company with an army. Half of all spending goes for Social Security benefits and health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, while another 20% is for defense and military benefits.

 

In the last five years, the shares of spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid have each risen more than 15%. Social Security and Medicare increased largely due to the aging of the population, while the increase in Medicaid comes from aging, growth in health-care costs and expanded eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

 

Over the same period, the share devoted to national defense dropped 22%, in part because Congress reduced war spending and capped other military spending in 2011, according to CRFB senior staffer Marc Goldwein.

 

The tax figures include all federal revenue. The individual income tax provided nearly half the total (47%), while payroll taxes kicked in about one-third (34%). The rest came from corporate income taxes (9%) and other levies such as customs duties and excise taxes (9%).

 

WSJ - At the link there is a chart that compares 2016 to 2011

 

 

 

 

[Ratt Mhule]

$2.08 for education!? Wtf

[zoogs]

I believe a lot of public education taxes come from the state and local levels. The federal government is mostly for large social welfare programs and defense.

[BigRedBuster]

Social Security is not really applicable to this because, in large part, that is paid into by a separate tax that people pay when they work and eventually (hopefully) get back when they retire. It's also a part of this that is not going to be touched as far as a major adjustment to the budget.

 

Another thing about this is that if we didn't pay Interest on past debt, we could pay for ACA subsidies, Justice, Housing assistance, Food Stamps and Education...without adding more to the debt. OR...improve programs even more.

[BigRedBuster]

$26.26 (plus whatever is in "veterans") is health care.

 

That's pathetic when you think about the fact that doesn't even include most of our country's health expenditures.

[GSG]

I haven't checked this out yet, but Steve Ballmer, former Microsoft CEO and now Clippers owner, just started his own website for tracking everything the govt does.

 

 

Clippers Owner Acquires Basic Grasp Of Political Economy For $10 Million

 

Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is one of the richest men in the United States, with an estimated net worth north of $27 billion. He was one of the very first Microsoft employees, and he worked as the company’s CEO for 14 years before stepping down and buying the Clippers in 2014. As an ultra-rich, recently retired guy with plenty of time on his hands (he’ll have more once the Clips inevitably flame out of the playoffs), he’s in a phase of his life where he’s taking up projects. One of those projects is a $10 million website dedicated to documenting what the government does.

 

As Ballmer tells it in a recent interview with New York Times billionaire whisperer Andrew Ross Sorkin, he was confused about where all that money he forks over to Uncle Sam goes. His wife Connie encouraged him to get into philanthropy, which he pooh-poohed because, as he saw it, “doesn’t the government take care of the poor, the sick, the old?” Thinking that a big pile of taxes must be funding some sort of generous, Scandinavian-style social security net for the underclass is a lovely nugget of rich person myopia, and after Ballmer found out that people were still not all taken care of, he did what only he could do, which was to launch the aforementioned $10 million website.

 

 

Here is the website: https://www.usafacts.org/

[TGHusker]

Social Security is not really applicable to this because, in large part, that is paid into by a separate tax that people pay when they work and eventually (hopefully) get back when they retire. It's also a part of this that is not going to be touched as far as a major adjustment to the budget.

 

Another thing about this is that if we didn't pay Interest on past debt, we could pay for ACA subsidies, Justice, Housing assistance, Food Stamps and Education...without adding more to the debt. OR...improve programs even more.

I think soc sec is in that Lock Box

[Kiyoat Husker]

I didn't want to start a new thread for this, so I thought this thread was an appropriate vessel.

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/339431-congress-needs-to-support-the-coins-act

 

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/02/two-senators-announce-plan-to-eliminate-penny-replace-dollar-bi/22022666/

 

We have here an actual common-sense bill that will cut wasteful spending by $16 billion. The COINS Act. It is truly a non-partisan agenda that simply corrects and modernizes our currency system.

 

1. stop making the penny, that costs 1.4 cents to make, and due to inflation is practically valueless anyway.

2. reduce the cost of the nickel, that costs 7.4 cents to make.

3. stop making dollar notes (that must be replaced every 2 or 3 years), and start making more dollar coins (that last about 30 years).

 

Really the only opposition groups are the Zinc industry (pennies are mostly Zinc) the company that makes the paper for money. If those special interests are able to exert their influence, taxpayers lose.

 

The dollar coin has been tried twice and failed (in the 70's and more recently in the 90's) mainly because we continued to make the dollar bill. Canada has had a successful dollar coin since the 70's because they simply stopped making paper dollars.

 

Will common sense win out over common cents? Stay tuned.

[Moiraine]

Hint: it won't.

[Kiyoat Husker]

Hint: it won't.

[TGHusker]

I didn't want to start a new thread for this, so I thought this thread was an appropriate vessel.

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/339431-congress-needs-to-support-the-coins-act

 

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/02/two-senators-announce-plan-to-eliminate-penny-replace-dollar-bi/22022666/

 

We have here an actual common-sense bill that will cut wasteful spending by $16 billion. The COINS Act. It is truly a non-partisan agenda that simply corrects and modernizes our currency system.

 

1. stop making the penny, that costs 1.4 cents to make, and due to inflation is practically valueless anyway.

2. reduce the cost of the nickel, that costs 7.4 cents to make.

3. stop making dollar notes (that must be replaced every 2 or 3 years), and start making more dollar coins (that last about 30 years).

 

Really the only opposition groups are the Zinc industry (pennies are mostly Zinc) the company that makes the paper for money. If those special interests are able to exert their influence, taxpayers lose.

 

The dollar coin has been tried twice and failed (in the 70's and more recently in the 90's) mainly because we continued to make the dollar bill. Canada has had a successful dollar coin since the 70's because they simply stopped making paper dollars.

 

Will common sense win out over common cents? Stay tuned.

Wallet makers may have a hard time with #3. But in good old fashion govt tradition, we will subsidize all wallet makers to retool from long dollar bill holding styles to coin holding types. Of course we will need to study this important issue. Have hearings on the cost of leather and invite leather, paper and wallet lobbyists to educate law makers on the issue over caviar and steak. This will take 3 years to get through the republican controlled congress - which cannot agree on repealing the existing dollar note legislature, modifying it, or keeping it in its current form in fear of losing their caviar and steak dinners. Meanwhile education will be cut by 5% due to the rise in the cost of paper. Healthcare will still linger as the congress weighs this important wallet decision. Congress has to keep it priorities in order, you know. Oh, forgot to mention, Putin who just addressed a joint session of Congress on the invite of Pres Trump, purchased stock in Russian leather and paper companies which received a special import exemption from President Trump

[BigRedBuster]

1) Getting rid of the penny has been discussed for a long time. I really don't care other than, how is change made when a penny is needed? Do we round up or down to a nickel? Who decides which way it's rounded?

 

2) One thing that I thought of when reading your post about how much it costs to produce a penny or nickel...etc. This greatly reduces the chance of counterfeiters. I know it's only 1-5 cents. But, let's say a nickel is changed so it could be produced for 3 cents. If you produced 1,000,000 nickels and then put them into circulation, you just made $20,000.

 

3) I greatly dislike change in my pocket and there are times I have quite a few $1 bills in my bill fold. That would suck having all those larger coins in my pocket.

 

4) All this said, in 2013, the entire US money supply was 10.5 trillion. However, only about 1.2 trillion was actually in dollar bills and coins. Now, take this:

 

1.65 trillion pennies = 1.65 billion $$

86.64 million nickels = 4,332,000 million $$

 

 

So....contrast to the total money supply (10.5 trillion), these really aren't a big deal.

 

So, in summary, I really don't care what the do with these. They aren't making a big impact either way.

[Moiraine]

 

 

Hint: it won't.

 

What about our current political client makes you think the politicians won't get paid off by the nickel industry to not do this?

 

Just being realistic. The merit of an idea no longer matters to the people in charge.

[Kiyoat Husker]

1) Getting rid of the penny has been discussed for a long time. I really don't care other than, how is change made when a penny is needed? Do we round up or down to a nickel? Who decides which way it's rounded?

 

This isn't anything revolutionary. We always have to round values to the nearest decimal. In the early nineteenth century we had a half-penny. (it was worth quite a bit more in purchasing power back then. Canada has removed the penny and currently rounds to the nearest nickel. Do you really have to ask the method of rounding up or down? Basic math. It would actually make the most sense to get rid of the nickel and quarter too, and just make dimes and half-dollars. Then we could round to the nearest tenth of a dollar. I'm sure people's heads would just explode over that one.

 

3) I greatly dislike change in my pocket and there are times I have quite a few $1 bills in my bill fold. That would suck having all those larger coins in my pocket.

 

One of the reasons that change sucks is because it literally has no value. There was a study done recently that found that millennials usually don't pick up change off the ground that is less than a quarter, and many of them literally throw change in the garbage. Considering what you can buy with a dime, it actually makes sense.

 

So, in summary, I really don't care what the do with these. They aren't making a big impact either way.

 

True, but this is a good case study in how our government struggles to even pass an easy, straightforward bill with no partisan politics - mainly because of some minor special interest lobbying. If we can't pass this bill to get rid of an inefficiency in currency, how are we going to make ANY area of government more efficient? Like the military or veteran's health care, for example.

[BigRedBuster]

I know basic math. My comment was....do you use normal math to round up or down? Or, do you always round up? Always round down????

 

The answer to that will affect how something is priced.

 

If I sell something that is priced at $1. Now, I need to pay attention to what the sales tax percentage is. The difference could make a big difference in what my final margin is on the product.