How much are you paying for NASA?
Friday, October 01, 2010
Here's an interesting site that just started:
http://www.yourtaxreceipt.org/
That site was inspired by this thread on Reddit, and is quite simple: you enter the amount paid in taxes last year and it lets you know how much went where. I'll pretend I paid $10,000 in taxes last year. That works out to:
What You Paid For:
Social Security | $1,927.22 |
Medicare | $1,158.35 |
Medicaid | $713.48 |
Interest on the National Debt | $531.54 |
Combat Operations In Iraq and Afghanistan | $424.39 |
Military Personnel | $357.02 |
Veteran's Benefits | $138.24 |
National Parks | $128.44 |
Federal Highways | $118.31 |
Health Care Research (NIH) | $86.19 |
Foreign Aid | $85.33 |
Education Funding for Low Income K-12 Students | $70.69 |
Military Retirement Benefits | $60.37 |
Pell Grants for Low Income College Students | $55.09 |
NASA Space Program | $52.02 |
Internal Revenue Service | $32.76 |
Environmental Clean Up (EPA) | $21.61 |
The FBI | $20.76 |
Head Start | $20.20 |
Public Housing | $19.44 |
Drug Enforcement Agency | $5.81 |
Amtrak | $4.13 |
Smithsonian Museum | $2.07 |
Funding for the Arts | $0.44 |
Salaries and Benefits for Members of Congress | $0.35 |
Keep this site in mind whenever the "let's fix every problem we have on Earth before spending any money on space" argument comes up.