Where USA Tax Money Really Goes

War Resisters League (WRL) has analyzed USA federal funds as presented in the “Analytical Perspectives” of the Budget of the United States Government. The current edition of the War Resisters League’s pie chart flyer (see image above), analyzes the US Federal Fiscal Year 2017 Budget.

In the pie, “Current military” includes Department of Defense ($586 billion) and the military portion ($182 billion) from other departments. “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt (a 80% is used because WRL consider that if there had been no military spending most – if not all – of the national debt would have been eliminated)

Figures are Federal funds, which do not include Trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. The Federal funds portion of the budget comes from US taxes payed on Tax Day. The image above and the detailed analysis by War Resisters League is based on taxes payed by April 18, 2016.

The WRL webpage also shows the government view of the budget, which is a distortion of how income tax dollars are spent, because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and most of the past military spending is not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. The government practice of combining Trust and Federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller.

This graph shows US military spending from 1945 to nowadays. It is at its highest levels since World War II despite recent declines.

Citing Matthew Evangelista, from Costs of War Project, “The biggest contribution the United States can make to combating terrorism worldwide is to abandon the war paradigm and extricate itself from the wars that have served as such an effective recruiting device for new terrorists.”

Read the complete WRL analysis: https://www.warresisters.org/where-your-income-tax-money-really-goes-wrl-pie-chart-flyer-fy2017

Read also, in Truthout: “The Military Assault on Global Climate” by Patricia Hynes: https://truthout.org/articles/the-military-assault-on-global-climate/

For more information: http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar