Always liked this because it helps people see to some extent where money is going.
I know the UK and Portugal do this as well. It was especially interesting in the UK during the Brexit years because you could see a tiny piece of that pie chart with EU contributions, almost saying “this is how little of our money is going to Europe”, didn’t do any good in the end but hey, still great info to have that all detailed
That welfare budget is a load of of shit, too. If you have a look at the actual breakdown, most goes on housing (read: private landlords) and(!) pensions.
Some crafty fucker in the dwp had the genius idea of splitting up state and civil service pensions, placing civil service pensions under the welfare group to make the welfare bill higher. Out of the welfare budget I think only 5% of that goes on the unemployed. Out of that 5% only 1% of that 5% figure goes to the long term unemployed. (Being on the dole >6months). Yet they only bang on shit the feckless and workshy…
Is this hard to do in practice? I would love to see a breakdown like this in the United States, and especially on a local level. What’s involved in getting this information? Where does someone even start to request something like this?
It would not be a good use for Blockchain technology. Besides the problem that your dollars are a fungible asset that don’t have a physical object associated with it, as soon as you dollars get converted to another state, account, entity, whatever along with another thousands people’s dollars you would lose the tracking. And ultimately even if you could achieve this it would then either all fall to one or two accounts so you would have the disheartening effect of seeing your entire annual contribution spent on something tedious like fuelling an aircraft carrier, or they would attempt to distribute it evenly in which case why not save all the effort and just track the average spend budgets? It’s a solution looking for a problem here.
Ah, thank you for the explanation. I thought that money could be tracked even through conversion, but now I see how that wouldn’t be possible. It’s better suited for tracking bitcoin and the like, right?
Part of me wants to see that tedious spending of my money but I suppose it wouldn’t do me any good. An average breakdown would be nice, starting with my property taxes.
I think something like this would make U.S. citizens feel better about taxes in general, since it can sometimes feel like you’re throwing a large portion of your hard-earned money away.
The data to create this is essentially public with budget bills right? It would just take building a percentage tree and categorizing them appropriately. I might look into how complex this would be to build.
its basically just proportioning out the nations budget against the amount of tax paid,assuming you had access to how much was spent where by category, it would be a peice of piss to make
Most in Australia don’t read where the money goes. Taxes aren’t too bad (IMO) and the system is so easy that once you submit you don’t really go back to see where it went. Or maybe I live in a bubble.
Mind you the largest chunk of that is the elderly with the unemployed being one of the smallest ones. I’m very much in favour of both by the way.
If you think your taxes are too high then it’s not because too much is going to welfare; it’s because too much is going to tax breaks (which won’t show up on a chart like this) for fossil fuel companies and the wealthy.
My favorite thing about budget breakdowns in the US is how often pundits list defense spending as a percentage of GNP (gross national product) rather than as a percentage of the annual budget. Nothing else in the budget ever gets this kind of favorable treatment (which makes it appear smaller than it actually is) except sometimes debt service.
I don’t think that’s favorable treatment. Defense is 3%. Social Security is 5%. Medicaid and Medicare is also 5%.
We can afford our defense budget and make the country better for the common person by utilizing our funds more efficiently and/or moving to universal healthcare.
Health wouldn’t be on there at all because fuck em
Defense would be spelled correctly and be so large that it would need to be on its own section, because the chart scale would distort things so badly that everything else would look like a sliver above zero
Education would be smaller than your immigration
Welfare, depending on the administration, would likely be some derogatory categorization for each group just to piss off their base
“other” would be the best biggest thing after Defense and provide no details, because it would be corporate subsidies and that would look bad
Health wouldn’t be on there at all because fuck em
The US actually does spend an incredible amount of money on healthcare compared to other countries. Nearly $2 trillion in the budget for FY 2023 alone. Medicare and Medicaid comprising the majority of that spending.
The US spends about twice as much per person for healthcare out of taxes than comparably rich nations do.
The problem isn’t the budget, it’s the cost. Healthcare is way too damn expensive in the US compared to elsewhere.
But remember, having all these private companies run the system is good, actually! The alternative is communism despite every other capitalist country in the world using the alternative!
This is very easy to find with a simple google search. Here’s the year-to-date spending for 2023:
$1.01T social security
$673B health
$636B medicare
$623B income security
$610B defense
$494B net interest
$220B veteran benefits & services
$201B education, training, employment, and social services
$89B transportation
$74B community and regional development
$179B other
Not only is it pretty common for a democracy to be pretty open about how they spend their tax budget, it’s really common for these figures to be discussed when attacking America 🙄
I mean, we spend more on defense than the next several nations combined and we haven’t won a war in 80 years.
We spend more on healthcare than every other nation and it’s still the most expensive healthcare system in the world.
We spend hundreds of billions on a welfare system that forces people on it to keep working until the day they die.
We throw out billions in kickbacks and “incentives” to billion dollar companies.
I could go on with the numerous, seemingly never ending problems with the US, but the point is that our system is indeed bad and dumb. Nothing we have works, and all of it is extremely over funded and under delivering. At this point, tearing it all up and starting again seems like the easier way to fix things, and getting to that point is never good
Social security is SELF-FUNDING, and even still lends money to the general fund. Yes, this a list of all government spending, but it isn’t what your FICA payment goes towards. Military spending is #1 for that.
As yet, social security is still a SELF-FUNDING program that lends money to the general fund. I’m gen-x, not a boomer. Stop buying into generational warfare. We have more in common with working class boomers than with gen Z tech bros.
As someone who has spent a lot of their time around wanna be gen z tech bros, 99% of people have more in common with a damn antelope than gen z tech bros, especially the fanatically devoted ones. Those guys make some Jonestown people look like they aren’t weren’t in a cult
It’s also had negative cash flow for the last decade despite exponentially growing future obligations, and is currently trending towards insolvency by 2033. That’s what happens when you detach expenditures from taxes. So while boomers are simultaneously enjoying low taxes and reaping the benefits of social security, the fund will run out of money before it can have any chance of paying out for millennials. It’s not like the social security taxes I’m paying now are being “set aside” for me - they’re going directly into the welfare checks for my parents.
and what’s wrong with “social services” having a negative cash flow? It’s to help people in need, that’s the entire purpose of taxes, to help the community/country. why do people think that any government systems should be positive cash flow like it’s a business? LOL
Pretty sure they aren’t upset at the government not turning a profit or taking care of people.
social security is still a SELF-FUNDING program
[Insolvency is] what happens when you detach expenditures from taxes.
So while boomers are simultaneously enjoying low taxes and reaping the benefits of social security, the fund will run out of money before it can have any chance of paying out for millennials.
It’s not like the social security taxes I’m paying now are being “set aside” for me
Mannnn… I wish we had this in the U.S. Unfortunately it would ruin a lot of the propaganda forced down our throats, disabling some talking points for our dumbass politicians.
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