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Dude, where are my taxes (spent)? [1]

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Date: 2023-01-26  

Every year around tax time this idea pops into my head but I don’t think I’ve ever shared it. I don’t really have the skills or backing to make it a reality but perhaps someone else could.

Most Americans have little to no idea how their taxes are actually used. There’s a lot of talk in news circles about taxes and whether you are paying more or less than in previous years but not a lot of clear talk about how your tax dollars are actually spent. I think that causes a huge disconnect that is exploited by politicians and news organizations whose business models thrive on angering the public. Here’s an idea that might help reconnect tax payers to the process.

I propose a website that has a few simple elements.

1. You start by entering the amount of taxes you paid in the following year. This can easily be determined once you file your return. It can be completely anonymous and doesn’t even need to be the real number, it’s just an exercise.

2. You are then presented with a list of government expenditures, basically all the things the government spends money on. It should be expandable so you can either deal with the big picture categories or drill down into specifics within each category. We would have defense spending, social safety net, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, education, border security, etc categories. Perhaps even a “write in” section if there is something else you feel belongs in the federal budget.

3.There should also be an “Interest on government debt” section that gets filled in when you enter your baseline tax number. That’s usually around 7 or 8% of the budget so that number gets taken right off the top since it’s already been incurred.

4. You then get to engage in the fantasy experiment of “where would I like my money spent?” You can choose to enter either a dollar amount of a percentage of your total for each category. For example, you could enter 10% for defense, 20% for social safety net, etc until you’ve allocated all your money.

5. Once you’ve finished entering your ideal numbers, you submit that and the website then shows you what the government will actually spend your money on so you can see how closely aligned your ideals are with the current reality.

6. As an optional step, it could also show you which political philosophy most closely aligns with your choices to give you an idea of who you may want to support politically in the future to change things to align with your personal priorities.

I think that most people would find that they really don’t understand how their money is spent and how much they are being manipulated to feel as though it is being wasted on things they don’t support.

For example, everyone claims to support the troops and honor our veterans but I would guess that few of those people would allocate only 4% of their funds to supporting veterans while spending 12% or so on “national defense” as the government did in 2022.

It’s a small thing that I think would help to personalize the process and bring a little clarity to a confusing system that no one really understands.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/26/2149388/-Dude-where-are-my-taxes-spent

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