I do not carp about paying taxes because I, as did former SCOTUS Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., believe that taxes are the price you pay for a civilized society.
I cannot say that I think my taxes always go where I personally would put them, so let’s take a moment and pretend we run the world government. In broad terms, here’s the most recent breakdown from last year:
To where would you direct your taxes? I think I might put more toward science and medical research.
(The figures above do not add up to 100% because the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities rounded.)
Have at it. You have quite a lot of money at your disposal. How would you use it?
Thank you for publishing the divisions of the federal budget!
I know, I'm always a drag.
And that's why I'm going to explain not only why I won't propose different percentages, but what I think is involved in this framing, useful though it is in many ways.
One point about the percent-of-the-budget framing that's implicit in Susan's comment: as framed, it's about one moment in time, one year at most. In backing investment in science and medical research, Susan is reaching forward toward the real knowledge that funds our futures.
We USians have been largely persuaded, starting in the 1980s, that not investing in our and the world's people or environments is a form of Profound and Common Sense Thrift. It is not, any more than it's canny to delay roof repairs that are feasible.
But something that bothers me equally is viewing A Federal Budget as a pie and asking how to slice it is that it elides the costs and benefits of specified expenditures. (As well of course as ignoring all benefits, and definitely future ones.)
How can we evaluate military expenditures as a percentage? We should be asking and should know not only about incredibly expensive experimental aircraft but how much past expenditure is buried in vehicles, weapons, military installations, and so on. And we should know what the rationale is: Reagan at least made it clear that he was trying to induce the then Soviet Union to starve their people to feed their armories. (Who is gloating at the US doing that now, with our annual military expenditures topping those of the next ten biggest-military-spending nations? https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison )
Over and over Congress mandates thrift measures that deprive impoverished people of the means to live and/or the possibility of gaining prosperity in the name of thrift, scoring net losses for the national budget. Over and over Congress justifies stiffing low-income low-wealth people on the grounds that some low-level grifters might not use help as intended, while never bothering to check the results supposedly accruing to lavishing tax cuts and rescues and rights to eliminate competitors and restrict labor and giving of grants to the highest-rolling companies owned by the most disproportionately wealthy people.
It's important for people who are incensed at social supports or public investment in education to see what a small percent of the budget those are.
But I think that in evaluating federal budgets we should want to know project costs and project benefits, present and future.
$346 for K-12 education. As aid to help kids regain academic ground lost during the pandemic expires, many school districts are facing budget cuts.
$110 for the Child Tax Credit, that supports families with children. The recent expansion of this credit helped cut child poverty nearly in half.
$31.69 for substance use disorder support and mental health programs.
$14 for wildfire management. Wildfires cost upward of $394 billion in damages every year.
vs.
$2,974 for the Pentagon, more than half of which went to corporate contractors. The Pentagon budget is set to increase by $27 billion in 2024.
$249 for Pentagon contracts for Lockheed Martin, the top Pentagon contractor and maker of the troubled F-35 jet engine.
$32.29 for federal prisons. This only scratches the surface — state and local governments spend far more on prison costs.
$110 for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protections (CBP), the agencies responsible for separating immigrant families through detentions and deportations.
$4,308 for Medicare and Medicaid. Thanks to Medicare, nearly all Americans age 65 and older are insured. Thanks to expanded Medicaid enrollment and ACA subsidies, the number of uninsured Americans hit a record low in 2022.
vs. $5,109 for militarism and its support systems - including the Pentagon and war, veterans’ programs, deportations and border militarization, and federal spending on policing and prisons.
$516 for food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/SNAP), the food access program that served more than one in ten Americans at a time of rising food costs.
vs.
$1,748 for Pentagon contractors. Those contractors pay their CEOs multimillion-dollar salaries (at taxpayer expense), and their spending on dividends and stock buybacks to further enrich their shareholders rose 73 percent.
vs.
vs.
vs.
$58 for diplomacy to end and prevent wars vs. $112 to other militaries for weapons and and negotiate international agreements. training that feed conflicts and harm civilians.
$23 for the Federal Aviation Administration, the federal agency responsible for airline safety.
vs. $87 for Pentagon contracts for Boeing, the company responsible for numerous commercial airline safety problems.
$10.84 for energy efficiency and renewable vs. $12 for Pentagon and NASA contracts for energy programs to combat climate change. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space travel company.
Thank you for publishing the divisions of the federal budget!
I know, I'm always a drag.
And that's why I'm going to explain not only why I won't propose different percentages, but what I think is involved in this framing, useful though it is in many ways.
One point about the percent-of-the-budget framing that's implicit in Susan's comment: as framed, it's about one moment in time, one year at most. In backing investment in science and medical research, Susan is reaching forward toward the real knowledge that funds our futures.
We USians have been largely persuaded, starting in the 1980s, that not investing in our and the world's people or environments is a form of Profound and Common Sense Thrift. It is not, any more than it's canny to delay roof repairs that are feasible.
But something that bothers me equally is viewing A Federal Budget as a pie and asking how to slice it is that it elides the costs and benefits of specified expenditures. (As well of course as ignoring all benefits, and definitely future ones.)
How can we evaluate military expenditures as a percentage? We should be asking and should know not only about incredibly expensive experimental aircraft but how much past expenditure is buried in vehicles, weapons, military installations, and so on. And we should know what the rationale is: Reagan at least made it clear that he was trying to induce the then Soviet Union to starve their people to feed their armories. (Who is gloating at the US doing that now, with our annual military expenditures topping those of the next ten biggest-military-spending nations? https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison )
Over and over Congress mandates thrift measures that deprive impoverished people of the means to live and/or the possibility of gaining prosperity in the name of thrift, scoring net losses for the national budget. Over and over Congress justifies stiffing low-income low-wealth people on the grounds that some low-level grifters might not use help as intended, while never bothering to check the results supposedly accruing to lavishing tax cuts and rescues and rights to eliminate competitors and restrict labor and giving of grants to the highest-rolling companies owned by the most disproportionately wealthy people.
It's important for people who are incensed at social supports or public investment in education to see what a small percent of the budget those are.
But I think that in evaluating federal budgets we should want to know project costs and project benefits, present and future.
In 2023, the average U.S. taxpayer contributed:
$346 for K-12 education. As aid to help kids regain academic ground lost during the pandemic expires, many school districts are facing budget cuts.
$110 for the Child Tax Credit, that supports families with children. The recent expansion of this credit helped cut child poverty nearly in half.
$31.69 for substance use disorder support and mental health programs.
$14 for wildfire management. Wildfires cost upward of $394 billion in damages every year.
vs.
$2,974 for the Pentagon, more than half of which went to corporate contractors. The Pentagon budget is set to increase by $27 billion in 2024.
$249 for Pentagon contracts for Lockheed Martin, the top Pentagon contractor and maker of the troubled F-35 jet engine.
$32.29 for federal prisons. This only scratches the surface — state and local governments spend far more on prison costs.
$110 for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protections (CBP), the agencies responsible for separating immigrant families through detentions and deportations.
$4,308 for Medicare and Medicaid. Thanks to Medicare, nearly all Americans age 65 and older are insured. Thanks to expanded Medicaid enrollment and ACA subsidies, the number of uninsured Americans hit a record low in 2022.
vs. $5,109 for militarism and its support systems - including the Pentagon and war, veterans’ programs, deportations and border militarization, and federal spending on policing and prisons.
$516 for food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program/SNAP), the food access program that served more than one in ten Americans at a time of rising food costs.
vs.
$1,748 for Pentagon contractors. Those contractors pay their CEOs multimillion-dollar salaries (at taxpayer expense), and their spending on dividends and stock buybacks to further enrich their shareholders rose 73 percent.
vs.
vs.
vs.
$58 for diplomacy to end and prevent wars vs. $112 to other militaries for weapons and and negotiate international agreements. training that feed conflicts and harm civilians.
$23 for the Federal Aviation Administration, the federal agency responsible for airline safety.
vs. $87 for Pentagon contracts for Boeing, the company responsible for numerous commercial airline safety problems.
$10.84 for energy efficiency and renewable vs. $12 for Pentagon and NASA contracts for energy programs to combat climate change. SpaceX, Elon Musk’s space travel company.
https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/NPP-Tax-Day-2024-Fact-Sheet.pdf