About the Tax Breakdown Project
According to Harris Polls sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations the average American believes that the United States Government spends over 20% of its budget on foreign aid each year. The real number, just under 1%, was chosen by approximately 2% of those surveyed.
The Tax Breakdown Project uses the power of AJAX to elegantly show where federal tax money really goes. The data is taken directly from OMB information, linked on our references page.
The authors of the site are two recent MIT alumni with an interest in web development. We are interested in hearing suggestions for how to make the site better!
This site is now powered by the Google App Engine, with the Javascript generated by Google Web Toolkit. The previous version was powered by TurboGears, which is still a project we like.
Why lump taxes together?
Two reasons. First, the federal budget lumps taxes together. The Social Security Trust Fund does receive IOUs from the government when its surplus is spent on other items, but the surplus is spent on other items. The amount paid to the trust funds are shown in the budget, along with all the rest of the expenses.
Second, we feel that it is disingenuous when politicians neglect payroll taxes (Social Security and Medicare taxes) when discussing the federal budget. Payroll taxes account for the majority of federal taxes paid for many families, and earmarking the money for special programs does not make it "not count."
Why are there negative numbers in the data?
Some federal agencies collect additional income from sources other than taxes. This additional income factors into their budgets, and appears as a negative number in our calculations. We felt it would be unfair to indicate that tax dollars go to programs in which receipts from the programs offset their costs - for example, if an agency exists to provide licenses, and the license fee income exceeds the cost of the agency, that agency should not show up as a net drain on tax dollars.