Most of us want our tax dollars to be wisely used — especially around tax time. But do you know where your taxes went?
At the National Priorities Project, we got the receipts. Our latest Tax Receipt analysis breaks down your federal income taxes by the portions of government spending you paid for.
Last year, more than usual went to health, unemployment, and labor as the largest categories of spending — a result of the COVID pandemic and ongoing economic crisis.
But a lot of your tax dollars still ended up in corporate pockets, padding the wallets of war profiteers. The average taxpayer contributed about $2,000 to the military last year. More than $900 of that went to corporate military contractors.
Other militarized parts of the budget greatly outweigh significant items of social spending, which are still severely underfunded compared to the scale of ongoing societal crises.
Some more Tax Day facts for 2022:
The United States is investing too much in the military and law enforcement, and not enough on urgently necessary priorities for everyday people.
But that’s not inevitable. Shifting just a fraction of what our government spends on militarization for real human needs could transform whole communities across our country.
In peace,
Lindsay, Ashik, & Lorah
