One of those days that’s etched into the consciousness of every working American is coming up in just over a month. April 15 is the deadline by which all of us are supposed to have our 2005 tax returns filed, and if we owe money to the government, our taxes paid.
Do you ever wonder where that tax money goes? Let me show you a map so you can follow it.
A pointer to the map on the flip.
First, the gushing fulsome praise. I can’t say enough good things about the wonderblog Boingboing. The mad geniuses there cover a variety of subjects, from free speech issues to why digital rights management of the music you buy is such a terrible idea, to the odd and inexplicable, to way cool stories like today’s front page piece about eighth-graders who built a working roller-coaster in their gymnasium, to the revealing truth about how robots have invaded our planet and are assimilating our children (you have to see this to get the full effect), to “news outside the bubble” (as Harry Shearer terms it.)
One of today’s items is a pointer to a project over at DeviantArt. Somebody over there wanted to see where their tax dollars were going. So, they drew a picture.
I do hope that picture doesn’t break anyone’s browser. You can click the graphic to see the full size picture; be warned, however, that it is very big, which also means it’s very readable.
The graphic is very easy to follow. The circles are sized in proportion to the amount of the Federal discretionary budget that is allocated to that particular division. So, for instance, you can see how much money the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor fighters get as opposed to, say, money allocated to FEMA, or vocational education, or the DEA.
Note that this graphic does NOT include non-discretionary spending. That includes items like the interest on the national debt, Social Security, and similar moneys over which Congress has no control. The graphic above shows only the items of the Budget over which Congress has some say in what gets allocated where.
The logical conclusion to all this, of course, is that if you don’t agree with where this money is going, you might want to point out to your congresscritter which areas of the budget need improving. The numbers in the graphic are for the 2004 budget; however, one can expect that the figures for the current budget proposals will be similar. The cynical among us will probably think the Defense numbers will increase.
Cross-posted at Daily Kos and My Left Wing.
