"Death and Taxes: A visual look at where your taxes go"

[Magrus]

I found a link to this site through my friends wife, and found it interesting. I got the idea to post it here from the Mysterious Jet thread and so here it is.

Death and Taxes: A visual look at where your taxes go

The resolution is huge to fit everything onto a single chart, just to inform everyone. It may take some time to load up for that reason.

A list of all the different departments of the governments funding for you to look at a quick scan of things...

2004 National Budget: 782 Billion Dollars

1. Military/ Non-Military Spending:

$399 Billion/$383 Billion (scary huh?)

2. Department of Defense Distribution: (in billions)

Army- $93.7
Air Force- $113.7
Navy/Marines- $114.6
Defense Wide- $57.9
Other- $20.056

3. United States Congress Distribution: (in billions)

Dept. of Agriculture- $19.503
Dept. of Veterans Affairs- $28.057
Dept. of State and International Assistance- $27.483
Dept. of Commerce- $5.406
National Science Foundation- $5.481
Small Business Administration- $0.798
Dept. of the Treasury- $11.397
Dept. of Labor- $11.535
Environmental Protection Agency- $7.627
Dept. of Energy- $23.376
Dept. of Health and Human Services- $65.013
NASA- $15.469
Dept. of Education- $53.137
Dept. of Justice- $17.697
Dept. of the Interior- $10.587
Dept. of Transportation- $53.285
Dept. of Housing and Urban Development- $31.301
Other agencies- $16.1
-----------------------------
This gives you all of the first breakoff points on the charts from the two categories, there's simply too many of the rest of the subcategories inside those to list off, but you can see all of those on the site if the list interests you.

I don't have enough time for a detailed interpretation, I spent all night and day watching a 1 month old girl and I'm completely drained, so I'll get to that at some point later.

I do however have to say, how does it seem wise to spend more on the military than the rest of the functions of our government when so many are unemployed, homeless, needy, sick, etc.? Cutting the militaries funding in half would boost the rest of the countries programs, each and everyone of them by 50% of their funding. Would this not create a much better place to live in? In this day and age, if someone really wanted our nation gone, they'd nuke us, no soldiers or tanks or jets are going to prevent that. Why not have a happy, better life until then hmm?

Hope you enjoy your viewing of it.

[fable]

Traditionally, the most liberal US regimes have been the ones to build up the military and get involved in wars; the most conservative have cut military spending, sometimes to the core. At least, that's the way it was until Reagan. Which only shows how far away from traditional "conservative values" those two paragons of religious virtue, Reagan and Shrub, really have been.

Incidentally, the neo-cons still hold it against Clinton that he drastically reduced defense spending after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. You can't take over the world militarily, after all, if you don't break your budget on missiles and the like.

[ik911]

www.costofwar.com

The costs of a ridiculous war, somewhere far, far away...

[giles337]

This site, and costofwar scare me. And add to my hate of GWB. Shocked.

[Vicsun]

The link you posted was a work of art If you are interested in where your taxes go, you might want to look for a more credible information source.

[ik911]

I examined the D&T thing closely.

Remarkable stuff:

USA Dep. of State & International Assistance spends 4.141 Billion on Foreign Military Financing. Note that this is registered as Non-Military Spending.

Bordersecurity (US Dep. of Homeland Secur.): 16.563 Billion!
The whole Dep. of Justice gets "only" 17.697 Billion...

Dep. of Veterans Affairs totals 28.057 Billion. 25.406 Billion of that goes to Medical Care. The National Institute of Health gets 27.742 Billion.

Ofcourse, the most remarkable thing is how much is spent on the military. But these little things might not catch your eye.

[Magrus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vicsun The link you posted was a work of art If you are interested in where your taxes go, you might want to look for a more credible information source.

Oh, I know it's just one man's work of art based on the 2004 budget. I'm also keeping in mind there could be errors or it could be complete BS, but somehow I don't think so and given my policy on avoiding looking deeply into politics to avoid general frustration, that will do for a simple possibility.

I just thought people might wish to take a look at it, and perhaps spark an interest in how money might be spent from our taxes upon seeing that.

[Ekental]

This is interesting... but I agree with Vicsun 3rd party sites like this tend to skew information or leave parts out. A better look at the budget would be to look at the respected news agencies... i.e. washington post/nytimes and the gov sites and compile those.

It's even worse when the entire site is made by one person.

[fable]

The Washington Post and the New York Times aren't respected news agencies; they're commercial businesses. The former, under Donald Graham's leadership, has become an extremely conservative newspaper that thrived in the lurge to the right in government since Carter. The latter has moved to a centrist position since a more liberal one that it had, back in the 1960s--but for agencies, you'd have to look to AP, UPI, Reuthers, Agence France-Presse, etc. And for in-depth, honest assessment, your best bet are the individual books written by old-fashioned muckrakers: reporters who are specialists in unearthing the news and behind-the-scenes facts in specific fields. Even then, you have to be careful that you aren't dealing with someone who's got an axe to grind, or is seeking high book sales from sensationalizing.

[jopperm2]

I agree with fable here.. There are very few people/agencies out there that are actually looking for facts. There's no money in reporting facts. Sure, things that you report have to be true in the sense that you didn't completely make them up(and this only applies to sources that people pay attention to, not kookie websites), not that you have to realy present them as they are.. I'd like to see what the artist would propose we do with the discretionary budget, and whether he has any idea how much things like missiles and fighter jets cost. Also, in reference to giles' comment about dubya, consider this: He doesn't write the budget. In fact, many of the people that do write it have been in the congress since before he was in politics. It is a good work of art though.. It did exactly what it intended to do, sensationalize the budget in a way that is visually appealing.

[Magrus]

I'd have to say the closest someone might come to producing a true report of this would be an economics student doing a report, or some investigator digging for corruption and wasteful spending. Even then, the facts found might not be facts at all when digging through a governments business. For all I know, the budget reports put out year after year could really be code spouted to broadcast invasion plans to the mothership or something you know? No one truly pays enough attention to dig through whats true or untrue with the government on everything.

[jopperm2]

There are watchdog agencies that can be somewhat impartial.. The truth is, I wonder if the government even knows what it's spending and where in the end.

[jopperm2]

pretty mysterious, huh?

[Magrus]

My point exactly, when digging for information, how do you know what's true or not? Even with the governments help, if they ARE hiding something, they have the resources to hide it so no one would find it, and silence those who managed to do so. It's easy to shout someone down as a crazy over-paranoid burnout who doesn't know what he's talking about. I know a few, and they're amusing to no end when they are irritating you beyond belief, but then sometimes, little bits of things DO make sense on what some of them say among their moronic ramblings that make you think. What things are being hidden, and how would we ever know unless something goes terribly wrong in public while the government is doing their thing.

They could be doing all sorts of things we simply don't know about and won't know until say, a new prototype bomb explodes and tears a hole in one of the states here. Something like that, they might very well lie about to cover what THEY'RE doing even then and blame it on another country, prompting a war. I just don't trust politicians for the most part. Too much is kept secret "for our own good".

[jopperm2]

The company I work for is very similar. The right hand doesn' thave a clue what the left is doing and we do it that way quite intentionally. If a person didn't get a docuument they were supposed to I tell them to fax a request to a certain fax number. They always want to talk to that department. I tell them they can't. They ask why. I tell them that department doesn't take phone calls. In actuality, I don't even know if there is a department. All I have is the same fax number I give the customers that goes to somewhere in Tennessee. I don't know who, if anyone, is on the other end. I don't know what the capabilities of that department are or anything. I just refer certain requests to that fax. I should fax them a note someday. "Fax me back if you exist"