Now that you’ve finished your taxes for the year, I thought a little refresher on where those tax dollars are being spent would be in order. So without further adieu, here is where your federal tax dollars are spent:

MOST TAX DOLLARS SPENT ON MILITARY

Out of every tax dollar collected by the US government,

42.2¢ goes to the military to pay for wars, weapons, and every now and then a few bucks for a wounded soldier.

22.1¢ goes to health care initiatives like Medicare and Medicaid and a few pennies for those pesky kids programs.

10.2¢ towards non-military debt-you know, paying off that national debt that comes from bigger government under Republican administrations.

8.7¢ funds anti-poverty programs like welfare, foodstamps, and shelters.

4.4¢ gets thrown at education where it is promptly turned into administrator salaries and profits for the big companies who print standardized testing materials.

3.9¢ underwrites the costs of governmental services-from the courts and justice systems to the lifetime benefits our elected officials receive but would never let the rest of us have.

3.3¢ pays the bills for any projects related to affordable housing and community development-mostly this is used to buy poisonous FEMA trailers from some corporation tied to the current administration.

2.6¢ is spent to promote and explore the wonders of science and space, the future of cleaner, renewable energy, and to protect the environment…no, really, it IS!!!

1.5¢ of every dollar is for agriculture and transportation. Half to farmers to keep them from planting certain crops and half to people who can’t seem to make a road that lasts more than a season or two.

and finally,

1¢ gets sent abroad in the form of foreign aid-but only to countries who promote abstinence, fight terrorists, or lend us lots of money.

I know this only adds up to 99.9¢ out of a dollar…I guess that other tenth of a cent is beign siphoned off the top ala Office Space and is accumulating in a slush fund somewhere for out of work politicians to draw from in case of a caviar emergency or something. (Hey…a tenth of a cent can really add up when you’re talking billions of dollars in tax receipts.)

(BTW- these numbers were culled from a slide show presented at cnbc.com)

Cross posted at Bring It On!