Your Tax Dollars at Work

Relative to the blog I just wrote about taxes, I thought you might be interested in where your tax dollar goes.

42.2 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward Military expenses. Current Military and war spending used 28.7 cents, interest on Military debt was 10 cents, and Veterans’ benefits were 3.5 cents out of every federal income tax dollar.

22.1 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward Health programs. Health ($458 billion) is the federal funds portion of all health spending by the federal government, including the federal funds spending on Medicare.

10.2 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward interest on non-Military debt. The military share of the interest payment is based on the average historical share of national defense spending. Since interest payments are on the debt which has been accumulated over time, the allocation of shares between military and non-military spending takes this into account.

8.7 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward anti-poverty program costs. Anti-Poverty Programs ($179.4 billion) includes federal funds outlays on the sub-function areas food and nutrition assistance and other income security.

4.4 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward education, training, and social services costs. Education, Training and Social Services ($90.6 billion) includes all federal funds outlays on the function area of the same name.

3.9 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward government and law enforcement costs

3.3 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward housing and community development costs. Housing and Community Development ($69.2 billion) includes all federal funds outlays defined by the federal government as housing assistance ($39.7 billion), and the function area of community and regional development ($29.5 billion).

2.6 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward environment, energy, and science costs. Environment, Energy and Science ($54.6 billion) includes all spending on the government-defined function areas of natural resources and the environment ($29.9 billion), energy (-$860 million), and general science, space and technology ($25.6 billion).

1.5 cents out of every federal income tax dollar went toward transportation, commerce and agriculture costs. Agriculture, Commerce and Transportation ($31.7 billion) includes federal funds outlays on three function areas: agriculture ($16.7 billion ), commerce and housing credit ($590 million) and transportation ($21.6 billion).

One cent out of every federal income tax dollar went toward international affairs costs. International Affairs ($21.5 billion) includes the function area of international affairs except for international security assistance, Andean counterdrug programs and international narcotics control.

Now, consider that even the most conservative anti-immigrant groups around assert that illegal immigration costs us, the taxpayers, as much as 22 billion dollars at the most (which is highly doubtful), and you will see that the cost of illegal immigration is about one penny out of your tax dollar a year. And in exchange for that penny, you get cheap labor in any number of industries. And you get someone to clean your house as well. So, if you earn $30,000 per year, that illegal alien costs you all of $11.46 a year. That’s 22 cents a week. You give more than that away to guy with the homeless sign sitting in front of the Seven-Eleven. And you want to spend all that money to put up a 700 mile fence to save that? Excuse me, but that seems penny wise and pound foolish, if you ask me.

Isn’t it interesting that if we could cut the military budget by two percent, we could increase the education and social services budget by 22 percent. Imagine what the schools could do with 22 percent more money. We could increase the federal money for law enforcement by 25.6 percent. Spain, France, and England have all had more terrorist attacks than we have and they don’t begin to spend the kind of money on the military that we do.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if we, the citizens, could dictate what percent of our tax money went to specific parts of the budget? I wonder how much the military would get then? How would you divide YOUR tax dollar?