Your tax dollars at work

19.4% of our taxes go toward debt interest? it seems high. I'm not an economist but shouldn't we refinance?

eltuercas - The interest figure appears to be spot on. Federal bonds used to finance the deficit cannot be called - so those are difficult to refinance. In the recent past the government got rid of the 30 year bond and issued more shorter term bonds, which generally pay lower rates - thus had lower cost to the government. This strategy can be risky if rates go up. I believe the 30 year bond is coming back.

"Additional Spending" and "Other" (18.7%) are pork then?

Other in this case are the items that didn't make it into the graph b/c they were too small: nutrition, job training and housing. all things i would prefer to be paying than military debt interest. additional spending is a high amount - no idea what it goes toward.

i thought it was just american consumers who were in love with debt. i guess it's the government too. but, that's my damn money.

here's what i propose. the government may gladly borrow from me at the small rate of 10% annually on some on-demand payment note.

I would be concerned if I were American and about 40 (!) % of my tax money is spent on military!

Here's the fine print on "additional spending":

"everything else not listed above and is comprised of the following function and subfunction areas: international affairs outside of international security assistance (included above in military); general science, space and technology; energy; agriculture; commerce and housing credit; transportation; community and regional development; labor and social services outside of training and employment services; justice; general government; and undistributed offsetting receipts."

Hard to be sure, but I think "undistributed offsetting receipts" means "we subtracted your tax dollars from this category to make additional spending look smaller."

The graph is seriously wrong. Better recheck the figures--they do not track to the National Priorities Project's total outlays for 2006. According to NPP, in 2006, net interest is about 8%, defense is 20%. Not shown in your chart is Social Security (20%) and Medicare (13%), which together with other health (Medicaid, NIH, etc.) adds to 23% for health. I have no idea what's in the "other" and "additional spending" categories.

The numbers may differ from other sources, but they are what is reported on the National Priorities Project site: click on the source above and select "the United States."

Man i thunk we shul put more munies to the military, less to are education. 4.5 is waayy too high cause sometimes i dun even go to school and i plans to join the militury and hurt people four not beliven the same things as me.

Our military spending clearly represents a massive drag on the budget. It is ironic that an information / intellectual / service economy spends 4.5% of its budget on eduction and 27.1% (+ 9.1% on interest) on the military. If I managed my company's balance sheet this poorly I would be in prison, courtesy of Sarbanes-Oxley.

Healthy citizens make for healthy soldiers?

19.4% is not the interest rate but its the percentage of our taxes that go to the debt. It does not mean that we have a high interest rate but it means that we are deep in debt. The higher the debt=the higher the payments.