Where Does Your Money Go?

Too often people fail to inform themselves on where their tax dollars go once they are sent to the government.  What types of programs are funded by your hard-earned money?  What people do those programs help?  How much money goes to which areas over others?

In fiscal year 2012, the federal government spent $3.5 trillion.  Of that $3.5 trillion, $1.1 trillion was borrowed money; $1.1 trillion was money that future generations will have to repay.  One third of the budget was allocated for programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  Medicaid especially is suspected of being ripe with fraud and wasting taxpayer dollars.  Similar to SNAP, there are federal "safety net" programs in place that are designed to help families in need.  These programs are abused and those programs, which accounted for 12% of the budget in fiscal year 2012, are relatively useless.

Defense and national security issues do consume a large portion of the budget; however, while not perfect, these programs are nowhere near as fraud-laden as social programs.  We must use this as an opportunity to cut these programs down to size.  Only make them available for those who truly need them.

Learning where your tax dollars go is important for every American.  Unless you're aware of what it is being spent on, you have no way to keep your government accountable for its actions.  If you can't keep it accountable, it will continue to accumulate the massive $16 trillion debt we currently have, and that continues to rise by the minute.


Source:  http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258