Get Your Income Tax Receipt: Are These Your Spending Priorities?

This graph separates federal income tax dollars from the dedicated payroll taxes that go to Social Security and Medicare Part A. As you can see, in 2014 only 2.5% of Federal spending went to Education. Meanwhile, a staggering 27% goes to Military and another roughly 5% goes to interest on the military portion of the debt. There’s even more military-related spending tucked away in other buckets like Veterans Programs, FBI, Homeland Security, Dept of Energy, NASA and International Affairs.

We do spend another huge chunk on Health, with just under half going to Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the other big portion going to Medicare doctor and prescription drug payments not covered by Medicare’s payroll tax or enrollee premiums. Most seniors don’t realize that the Medicare payroll tax and premiums cover only about half of Medicare’s actual costs.

Did you finish your taxes? If so, get a breakdown receipt for your own federal income taxes here: http://nationalpriorities.org/... Enter in your total tax: From form 1040, use line 63 (but subtract any self-employment tax on line 57, as that is payroll tax not income tax). From form 1040EZ, use line 12.

You can also get a receipt here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/... Percentages vary a bit from the National Priorities’ receipt because of differences in how govt functions might be categorized.

Do the results surprise you? Do they reflect YOUR priorities?