Where does tax money go?

Question

if you can give a percentage of how local, state, and federal take.
THANK YOU!!

Answer 1

I will assume you're speaking of the United States, but this will generally hold true for most countries. Tax dollars are much like the salary you (or your parents if you're a minor) earn; all of the family expenses are like the budget items that are part of government spending programs. My example is greatly simplified, but should help explain what happens.

The typical family spends money on shelter (mortgage, rent), food, transportation, entertainment, savings and "stuff" (clothes, toothpaste, television sets, new kitchen floor). The government (and this holds true for local, state and federal governments) has similar budgetary divisions: military/defense, social spending (medicare, social security), education, roads/highways etc.

Each year the government creates a budget. For our family example, it might be $12,000 per year on mortgage, $50 per year for toothpaste, 1 new television set and a new kitchen floor, but no clothes or entertainment. The difference is that the federal budget is in the billions and trillions of dollars. The biggest percentage of money goes to social spending programs, predominantly medicare/medicaid and social security. The remaining portion is divvied up among all of the other budget items at the federal level (education, military, federal buildings etc,). A portion goes to states for projects across the country (commonly referred to as "pork barrel" funding) and then whatever is left over is quickly spent before the public figures out there was money left over.

There is no set percentage for state and local governments, as this funding is largely dependent upon the political representative lobbying for funds. If there is a particular need for an area, the representative will seek support from fellow congressmen and congresswomen to help get their funding measures passed. States with heavier populations or more popular/savvy representation are more likely to get funding for state/local projects.

If you need more specific information, you can refer to the actual federal budget - it's available online. Hope this helps to answer your question!

Answer 2

For federal, go to your 1040 booklet from 2005 and turn to page 81. If you don't have the booklet, click the link attached. Good luck finding each state's outlays and very good luck finding each local municipality's outlays. If you find a single web site for them all, please post it.

Answer 3

to fund the milk and cookies that soon to be president hillary will lay out for Chavez, UBL, Kim whatever and that irainain nitwit.

Answer 4

Most of it goes into the poltitician's pockets that you helped elect.

Answer 5

Up in smoke, ask Halliburton!

Answer 6

I DON'T KNOW PUT I WISH I KNEW

Answer 7

to somewhere