It's April 15; do you know where your tax dollars are?

Stat house
April 2006

It's April 15; do you know where your tax dollars are?
Agonizing of the 2005 tax year forms? Wondering how your tax money actually got spent in 2005? The National Priorities Project has some answers for you.

Your income taxes are allocated to the Federal funds budget. The total federal government budget includes the Federal funds and the trust funds budgets. Trust funds include Social Security, Railroad Retirement, and others. Total Federal funds outlays in 2005 were $1,865 trillion. According to the NPP that ginormous tax pie was divided as follows:

Cost of the War in Iraq

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• Military ($532.2 billion) including national defense and "sub function areas" such as international military assistance.

• Health ($377.1 billion) is the Federal funds portion of all health spending by the federal government, including the Federal funds spending on Medicare.

• Interest on the Debt ($348.5 billion).

• Income Security ($124 billion) includes Federal outlays with the exception of housing assistance and food and nutrition assistance. This category includes Supplemental Security Income ($38 billion) which provides cash assistance to disabled, elderly, and blind who have very low incomes; payments where Earned Income Tax Credit exceeds tax liability ($34.6 billion); Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ($17.4 billion); payments where child credit exceeds tax liability ($14.6 billion); foster care and adoption assistance ($6.4 billion); child care spending and a variety of other small programs for children and families.

• Education ($76 billion) includes all Federal funds outlays on elementary, secondary, and vocational education, higher education, and research and general education aids , subfunctions defined by the government.

• Veterans’ Benefits and Services ($69.1 billion).

• Nutrition ($50.7 billion) includes any Federal funds outlays classified as food and nutrition assistance, including the Food Stamp program, all child nutrition programs (such as the National School Lunch Program), and others.

• Housing ($37.9 billion)

• Natural Resources and the Environment ($26.6 billion)

• Job Training ($6.3 billion) includes the total for training and employment services as defined by the government.

• Other ($217.2 billion) includes everything else not listed above and is comprised of the following: international affairs outside of international security assistance (included above in military); general science, space and technology; energy; agriculture; commerce and housing credit; transportation; community and regional development; labor and social services outside of training and employment services; justice; general government.

And as you struggle through those last calculations, remember taxpayers in United States will pay $315.8 billion for the cost of war in Iraq. According to NPP, the same amount of money could have meant:

• 71,717,012 People Receiving Health Care or

• 5,472,330 Elementary School Teachers or

• 41,823,351 Head Start Places for Children or

• 185,783,623 Children Receiving Health Care or

• 2,843,180 Affordable Housing Units or

• 37,159 New Elementary Schools or

• 61,230,780 Scholarships for University Students or

• 5,441,915 Music and Arts Teachers or

• 7,114,877 Public Safety Officers or

• 558,642,585 Homes with Renewable Electricity or

• 4,946,324 Port Container Inspectors

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