Most Tax Dollars Spent On Military
April 16th, 2008 | by Ken Grandlund |
Now that you’ve finished your taxes for the year, I thought a little refresher on where those tax dollars are being spent would be in order. So without further adieu, here is where your federal tax dollars are spent:
MOST TAX DOLLARS SPENT ON MILITARY
Out of every tax dollar collected by the US government,
42.2¢ goes to the military to pay for wars, weapons, and every now and then a few bucks for a wounded soldier.
22.1¢ goes to health care initiatives like Medicare and Medicaid and a few pennies for those pesky kids programs.
10.2¢ towards non-military debt-you know, paying off that national debt that comes from bigger government under Republican administrations.
8.7¢ funds anti-poverty programs like welfare, foodstamps, and shelters.
4.4¢ gets thrown at education where it is promptly turned into administrator salaries and profits for the big companies who print standardized testing materials.
3.9¢ underwrites the costs of governmental services-from the courts and justice systems to the lifetime benefits our elected officials receive but would never let the rest of us have.
3.3¢ pays the bills for any projects related to affordable housing and community development-mostly this is used to buy poisonous FEMA trailers from some corporation tied to the current administration.
2.6¢ is spent to promote and explore the wonders of science and space, the future of cleaner, renewable energy, and to protect the environment…no, really, it IS!!!
1.5¢ of every dollar is for agriculture and transportation. Half to farmers to keep them from planting certain crops and half to people who can’t seem to make a road that lasts more than a season or two.
and finally,
1¢ gets sent abroad in the form of foreign aid-but only to countries who promote abstinence, fight terrorists, or lend us lots of money.
I know this only adds up to 99.9¢ out of a dollar…I guess that other tenth of a cent is beign siphoned off the top ala Office Space and is accumulating in a slush fund somewhere for out of work politicians to draw from in case of a caviar emergency or something. (Hey…a tenth of a cent can really add up when you’re talking billions of dollars in tax receipts.)
(BTW- these numbers were culled from a slide show presented at cnbc.com)
Cross posted at Common Sense
6 Responses to “Most Tax Dollars Spent On Military”
By christopher Radulich on Apr 17, 2008 | Reply
Heres another view
and this Does not include the cost of the wars
By steve on Apr 17, 2008 | Reply
LOL!! I paid one soldier’s salary for a year!!!
/sarcasm
By manapp99 on Apr 17, 2008 | Reply
I am calling bullshit on this:
“Out of every tax dollar collected by the US government,
42.2¢ goes to the military to pay for wars, weapons, and every now and then a few bucks for a wounded soldier.”
I posted this just recently about this same statistic. This webite has the pie chart of the income and expenses of the federal government:
http://www.washingtonbudgetreport.com/gb/front/?p=spending
Here we see that the feds take in 3 trillion and spend 693 billion on total defense. How does this translate into 42 cents of every dollar collected?
On the other hand SS, Medicare and Medicaid added together totals 1287 billion dollars or twice what is spent on defense.
The numbers represented above and passed around without checking are just out right lies.
By Chris Radulich on Apr 17, 2008 | Reply
When you add all your figures in the government chart the figure is 36% ( I assigned the interest to the military since SSN & medicare have been in the black for decades). When you throw in another 100 billion for the off the budget wars ( Iraq and Afganistan are not in the federal budget) you get 38%.
Also That is not a US government page. It is a private group. So it numbers are no truer than the other numbers.
By manapp99 on Apr 17, 2008 | Reply
You can’t just assign all the debt interest to the military, that is absurd. The bottom line is indisputable. The government takes in 3 trillion dollars from multiple taxes including income, payroll, excise, gas, etc. Of that 3 trillion about 20% goes direct to defense spending. That is 20 cents on the dollar. Even if you add in veterns health, military retirement and homeland security you get only 880 Billion. That is still less than the big three social programs by 400 billion.
To say this:
“Out of every tax dollar collected by the US government,
42.2¢ goes to the military to pay for wars, weapons, and every now and then a few bucks for a wounded soldier.”
is just a lie. There is no spin you can put on this statement and make it true. Why does the left feel the need to lie about the numbers?
Remember the statement is 42 cents for wars weapons and wounded soldiers, not repaying the debt or money for civilian employees on bases here and around the world or for maintenance on bases around the world etc. In other words the same military expenses we would have if we had no war.
By Chris Radulich on Apr 18, 2008 | Reply
Sure I can it is the biggest expense. Is the main reason we are in debt. Social security and medicare have been in the black so you can not assign the national debt to them. Again that is not the official government site ( not that they have not been know to lie) so their numbers are no better than the other sites.
Why does the right feel compelled to lie about everything even when the truth will help them?