by JANE SASSEEN
ust how much do you spend to foot the bill for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? What’s your share of the tab for interest on the national debt? How about to fund Medicare and Social Security, or to support foreign aid or the FBI?
With Tax Day upon us and Washington consumed by an intensifying battle over government spending — a fight that’s likely to be at the heart of the 2012 election — it’s surprising just how little most taxpayers know about where their money goes.
The simple truth is most of us don’t have any idea how much we each spend personally on government services like the military, the national parks or National Public Radio. Nor do we have a clear picture of how Uncle Sam divvies up the money we send him every year. That makes it harder to understand the real choices the country faces as Congress and the President debate how to get our fiscal house in order.
To help U.S. taxpayers figure things out, a prominent centrist think tank called Third Way has come up a “taxpayer receipt” that allows you to see exactly where your tax dollars go. Plug the amount you paid in federal income and payroll taxes into Third Way’s interactive calculator and the resulting receipt will tell you — down to the penny — just what you paid for those U.S. troops or to keep the parks up and running.
The results can be quite illuminating. Take a typical married couple with two kids who earn the median U.S. income, $69,800. After taking standard deductions, they would pay federal taxes of $6,993. Where does their money go?
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(Thanks to reader)