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Where did my taxes go?

wherethefuckdidmytaxesgo.com

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Re: Where did my taxes go?

#131

Post by jl6 »

d_burfoot wrote: post #104

Many Americans do not realize how much money the US government spends. When you include all three levels, it comes to $32K/person/year [0]. This is much higher than countries that are considered "social democracies" such as Finland, France and Canada. If you look at wealthy blue cities like NYC or SF, the spending is on the order of $50K/p/y, comparable to Norway. It is not realistic to believe that we can become a n…

I think many Americans do not realize how much is spent on debt interest payments, which are a tidy source of income for rich people.

Re: Where did my taxes go?

#132

Post by uticus »

> Interest per Second - General - The U.S. pays $31,688/second in debt interest — $1,901,285 every minute. Your share of that: $3893.33 [plugged in "normal" amount], gone before it bought anything.

...I thought I was already sufficiently terrified by the debt numbers...

Re: Where did my taxes go?

#133

Post by mekdoonggi »

cidd wrote: post #61
arjie wrote: post #12

This makes it sort of obvious how large the US welfare state is. Medicaid: 10% "Safety Net": 7.1% Social Security: 22.6% Medicare: 14.2% 53.9% of the federal budget is spent on welfare. That seems roughly in line with most Western nations.

If clinics and hospitals do not bill 1k dollars each visit, 100k+ for a simple surgery, and pharmacy does not sell medicine 10x the price, US gov't do not need that much allocation for healthcare.

They only bill that much because they need the average amount of money collected for a procedure to pencil.

They get that cash price amount from a tiny amount of people, 70% of that price from private insurers, 30-60% from Medicare, less from Medicaid. Even then, they have to basically litigate the bills through private insurance appeals.

If they had one payer which had a single reimbursement rate, they wouldn't have to do these shenanigans.

Re: Where did my taxes go?

#134

Post by slg »

d_burfoot wrote: post #104

Many Americans do not realize how much money the US government spends. When you include all three levels, it comes to $32K/person/year [0]. This is much higher than countries that are considered "social democracies" such as Finland, France and Canada. If you look at wealthy blue cities like NYC or SF, the spending is on the order of $50K/p/y, comparable to Norway. It is not realistic to believe that we can become a n…

>It is not realistic to believe that we can become a nice wholesome European country if we just raise taxes a bit.

This feels like a strawman. I can't recall ever hearing someone advocate for raising taxes and not changing a single other thing about the government. These ideas are all interconnected and someone advocating for increased taxes very likely has ideas about how spending should change too.

Re: Where did my taxes go?

#135

Post by pc86 »

janalsncm wrote: post #88
lastofthemojito wrote: post #14

As a thought experiment, it'd be interesting to imagine how things would play out if each taxpayer could adjust little sliders on each category to allocate where they personally would like their taxes to go. Agencies could recommend funding levels, Congress could recommend an allocation and if a taxpayer didn't change it, that default would take effect. But if a taxpayer preferred, they could say, "no, I won't be fun…

It is interesting because in a roundabout way this is essentially asking what taxes are for in the first place. You will probably get some kind of “tyranny of the majority/rich”. For example, if you have a country on the older side, most people will vote to heavily fund social security at the expense of education. As the demographics change, would be no mechanism to correct the issue. Demographics become destiny. Sim…

> California subsidizes the majority of states for example.

California doesn't pay taxes though, people in California do.

Not trying to be pedantic but this is a common framing that is, at its core, completely incorrect. States don't subsidize states because taxes aren't earmarked based on what state they came out of, it's all just government reallocation of wealth by one means or another.

Even if you were to accept this framing, California's net contribution does not cover the shortfall from 26 states, so the statement would be wrong even if it wasn't deceptive.

Re: Where did my taxes go?

#136

Post by slopinthebag »

janalsncm wrote: post #88
lastofthemojito wrote: post #14

As a thought experiment, it'd be interesting to imagine how things would play out if each taxpayer could adjust little sliders on each category to allocate where they personally would like their taxes to go. Agencies could recommend funding levels, Congress could recommend an allocation and if a taxpayer didn't change it, that default would take effect. But if a taxpayer preferred, they could say, "no, I won't be fun…

It is interesting because in a roundabout way this is essentially asking what taxes are for in the first place. You will probably get some kind of “tyranny of the majority/rich”. For example, if you have a country on the older side, most people will vote to heavily fund social security at the expense of education. As the demographics change, would be no mechanism to correct the issue. Demographics become destiny. Sim…

> For example, if you have a country on the older side, most people will vote to heavily fund social security at the expense of education

You don't even need a country to be on the older side. Canada's age demographic distribution is normal compared to other countries but since the older population has greater political capital (they donate and vote more), they predominantly benefit from political action at the expense of the younger class. The Liberal party won the previous election in large part by stoking fear in boomers about Trump and the USA, while ignoring issues that the younger generation faces.

In 2015, Canada ranked well above the US and 5th on the World Happiness Report. We now rank 25th. If you break that down by demographics, Canadians over 60 still rank in the top 10, but Canadians under 25 rank 71st. It's the largest gap between the young and the old of all developed nations, and a key indicator of what the priorities of government have resulted in.

Another indicator: For the first time in recorded Canadian history, men over 65 now out-earn men aged 25 to 34. Youth unemployment is ~15%. More than one in five young Canadians is underemployed. Young Canadians under 45 have seen virtually no real income growth since 2000.

Re: Where did my taxes go?

#138

Post by zahlman »

d_burfoot wrote: post #104

Many Americans do not realize how much money the US government spends. When you include all three levels, it comes to $32K/person/year [0]. This is much higher than countries that are considered "social democracies" such as Finland, France and Canada. If you look at wealthy blue cities like NYC or SF, the spending is on the order of $50K/p/y, comparable to Norway. It is not realistic to believe that we can become a n…

> It is not realistic to believe that we can become a nice wholesome European country if we just raise taxes a bit. The extra money will just be squandered and stolen.

Why, in your view, doesn't the same thing happen to them?

Re: Where did my taxes go?

#139

Post by cucumber3732842 »

ch4s3 wrote: post #50
phillipcarter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, much of that gets dispersed into an unfathomably complex web of private and profit-seeking interests, with much less actually going to individual beneficiaries.

A lot just gets sucked up by 3rd parties of all stripes. Only ~20% of hospitals are for profit institutions for example.

>Only ~20% of hospitals are for profit institutions for example.

And the other 80% are little to no more efficient in terms of dollars input vs services rendered.

Re: Where did my taxes go?

#140

Post by zahlman »

mikepurvis wrote: post #54
arjie wrote: post #12

This makes it sort of obvious how large the US welfare state is. Medicaid: 10% "Safety Net": 7.1% Social Security: 22.6% Medicare: 14.2% 53.9% of the federal budget is spent on welfare. That seems roughly in line with most Western nations.

Given that reality, I wonder why it is that spending in this category seems to be so much less effective in the US relative to other nations? Why is the US #22 in general quality of life [1], and the bottom of many rankings of health system performance [2]? Speaking as a Canadian, I wonder if at least part of it is the attitude that investments in these areas are "welfare" and not simply a part of the portfolio of es…

> Speaking as a Canadian, I wonder if at least part of it is the attitude that investments in these areas are "welfare" and not simply a part of the portfolio of essential services that are delivered by the state to citizens?

Also speaking as a Canadian, I don't understand the distinction you're drawing.

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