I’ve been floating around this idea recently, of a website that takes as input your tax bill and spits out what your share of the budget amounts to. For example, you’d enter that you paid $3,000 in federal taxes, and it would tell you that $500 of that went to the Dept. of Defense, or whatever. And maybe there’d be some nifty facts, like “you spent 82 cents to research the effects of decimating the forests on the habitat of the spotted owl.”
First off, if anyone knows if such a page already exists, please let me know.
A few years ago, the IRS used to publish a chart on the back page of the 1040 manual. It was a simple little pie chart, showing basically where the government got it’s income, and where it spent it. But that’s been nixed, and my guess is that it’s because the deficits are getting too embarrasing to state publicly.
On that note, this page at the OMB site is hilarious! They have charts for all sorts of data: like the year-over-year growth in “Protecting our Children from
Exploitation and Obscenity,” which, apparently, is one the most important things our government does.
I imagine this site will serve as the basis for my forthcoming project.
Now Playing: Episode 366
Obama staffs up, Detroit comes to DC and finally, Iraq and the US come to a security agreement.
Links Mentioned: Iraq SOFA … pros and cons of a bailout.
