Dear John,

Each year at tax time, the National Priorities Project produces a tax receipt that shows where your federal income taxes went.

This year, our receipt shows that the average taxpayer contributed $5,109 to militarism and its support systems, including weapons and war, deportations and detentions, mass incarceration and veterans’ programs.

That includes support for those who profit from war. The average taxpayer gave:

$1,748 toward Pentagon contractors. That’s more than the average monthly rent in the U.S. ($1,372).
$249 for contracts for Lockheed Martin, the largest Pentagon contractor. That’s more than a week’s food expenses for the average American household ($195).
$87 for the Pentagon’s contracts with Boeing, the company responsible for numerous safety failures on its commercial flights. That’s about equivalent to filling your car’s gas tank twice.

By contrast, investments that keep us safe and strengthen our families and communities are getting short shrift. The average taxpayer paid just:

$346 for K-12 education. As aid to help kids regain academic ground lost during the pandemic expires, many school districts are now facing budget cuts.
$110 for the Child Tax Credit, that supports families with children. The recent expansion of this credit during the pandemic helped cut child poverty nearly in half, but Congress let the expansion expire.
$10.84 for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs to combat climate change, the defining threat of our time.

This just doesn’t make any sense.

We need a budget that invests in the things we want more of (education, health care, clean energy) and less in things we need less of (war, deportations, and mass incarceration). We’ll only get there if we push back on the politics that favor corporate profits over public welfare.

In solidarity,

Lindsay, Alliyah and Kufre

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