YouBudget

by emptypockets

With remnants of Tax Day still on my mind (and my desk), I wanted to bring up a point I heard tossed out by a woman who, I think, was from the IRS when she was a guest on a CSPAN call-in show a month or two ago.

She pointed out that tax returns are the largest national survey taken annually and we could have more "fun" with them than we do. (And as a wonky-seeming government analyst, it really did, endearingly, seem to be her idea of fun.)

One thought she threw out there in passing has to do with the Revenue and Expenditure charts that used to be included with the instructions for the 1040 form. I believe they were not included this year, but the ones for last year (with data for 2005) look like this:

Details are in the caption, but the federal government basically runs on one part income tax, one part social security/medicare/retirement tax, and one part that's a combination of corporate income tax, borrowing, and other miscellaneous taxes. (Corporate taxes, specifically, made up just 11% of 2005's federal money.)

In expenditures, paying back our seniors took up the lion's share, with medicare, social security and other retirement programs at just over one-third of government spending. A quarter went to national defense. A little less, a fifth, went to assistance programs like medicaid, unemployment, and social services. And just one-tenth went to investment in the future, things like education grants, job training, science funding, transportation infrastructure. (NIH and NSF budgets put together were a little more than 1 percent of the total.) Seven percent of our money went to pay interest on the debt.

So this guest on CSPAN had a cute idea: what if, on the 1040, the largest annual national survey, we included an optional section with a blank pie chart where you could draw in how you want your tax money spent.

I'd be curious to see how folks -- from each party -- would want their tax money spent. I'm guessing the biggest change would be in national defense, for not only political but also moral reasons, as Wes Houston sang for Broadside in the 1960s, "You don't even have to have to leave your home to be a killer -- you've got your Congress, your Senate and your President, all the rest of your government. Out of your dollar give 'em thirty cents: you'll own a killer." I've been feeling the responsibility of that ownership more strongly than usual lately.

At the risk of playing into an Onion headline ("Democrats demand inquiry into how they're doing so far"), a YouBudget interactive pie chart might be an interesting widget to post on Democrats.org (or the Congressional website for that matter) the next time budget discussions heat up.

Comments

[emptypockets]

and, just because I couldn't find it anywhere on the web already, here are the lyrics to Wes Houston's "To Be a Killer" as found on the Best of Broadside anthology. The gun violence of the past week had put it in my mind anyway.

You don't have to own a gun to be a killer,
you don't even have to think it's fun to be a killer
Just give a man a solid start,
you break his soul and then you break his heart
Don't give him work, and let his family starve -- you'll get a killer

Now a little greed for a little more, can make a killer
Landlord's knocking at your door, he's a killer
You can't pay the rent, you've just been told
you've got to leave, your apartment's been sold
so it's out on the street in the freezing cold -- there's a killer

You take a homegrown boy with a homegrown smile and make a killer
No special human is needed to make a killer
Give him a uniform and a gun or two
"You'd better shoot boy, it's him or you,
aim straight, feller, and you'll get through" -- You've made a killer

You don't have to be alone to be a killer
You don't even have to have to leave your home to be a killer
You've got your Congress, your Senate and your President,
all the rest of your government,
Out of your dollar give 'em thirty cents: you'll own a killer.

[Mimikatz]

Great idea. It is in this year's book, on p. 83. It has FY 2005 data (Oct 2005-Sept 2006). That's what you show. Last year's booklet (p. 81) has 2004 data. For 2005, personal income taxes are 38%, payroll taxes are 32%,corporate are 11%. In 2004 personal income taxes were 35%, corporate were 8% and borrowing was 18%. In 2004 defense etc, and Soc Sec etc were 1% lower and law enforcement and social programs were 1% higher.

Ironically, I think I'd convert much of federal discretionary outlays into block grants to the states for the next 2 years, because most are better than the Feds. I'd take 5% from defense and give it to social programs--mostly education, infrastructure and alternative energy.

[P J Evans]

The fancy version of this is here:
http://thebudgetgraph.com/
(Saw it in a Google-ad at Making Light, and tracked down their website.)

As for showing where we wished the money to go: there was a short story in Analog, back in 1983, about this, in which everyone could designate where the tax money would go, and one year, everyone designated money to 'peace'.

[Rick B]

I had thought of something like that myself. But mine was simpler.

Make a list of government expenditures like NASA, NOAH, Defense, Education, Justice, CDC, Public Health, Infrastructure, and so on. Then each person gets to choose where 5% of their taxes go by checking two boxes. Another option would be to chose the top three, with the top one getting 2.5% of the tax paid and the second and third getting 1.75% each. The process would be limited to individuals and families paying taxes on less that, say $200,000. That would cover almost all of us, and not give the wealthy any additional power to control the government. They wouldn't even get a vote in this survey.

It would have several effects. One, it would tell congress what programs were most popular each time we all filled out the income tax and would be an emotional incentive to actually fill out the tax form. (This would be a counter to the anti-tax movement, which is why I would not suggest an option to cancel programs.)

Two, it would tell the program managers how effective they were in selling their program to the public. It would require an opening-up of a lot of programs that simply don't do effective Public Information. There would need to be strict controls on expeditures for Public Information, of course.

It would also be relatively simple to administer. Also, very few if any programs would ever increase their share of the budget through this method. The effect would be just like the check-off at United Way. The government would first assign the checked off sums, then fill up the budget to the preplanned budgetary amounts already determined.

Just a thought on how we, the people, can take back control of some aspects of our federal government.

[katie Jensen]

I love this idea. How to make it happen??

[emptypockets]

Mimikatz, thanks for that clarification/correction -- it brings up another point, which is that a bunch of us don't look at the 1040 instructions at all because we use a tax preparer of some kind (I use TurboTax). Besides being a national survey, this exercise would also be a national civics lesson, and actually be (I think) a pretty engaging way to get people not just to look at the annual budget outlays but to think about them critically (which you have to do if you're asked how you would set them).

PJ Evans and Rick B are following up on the next natural step, which is not to have merely a survey (which is useful in itself for political purposes) but actually have the survey do something. I like Rick B's approach, or some minor modification of it, very much.

katie, I dunno! aren't there supposed to be some political organizers and activists around here somewhere though?

Mimikatz, I'm curious how you would split the money up among the states. By population, by amount of tax paid in, (by their Senators' seniority), what? It would be profoundly unpopular, wouldn't it, to turn over tax revenue from profitable states like NY and CA directly to the poorer (mostly red) states?

Personally that 7% to pay off debt kills me, I'd be tempted to draw a pie chart that moves a big chunk of defense over to paying off the debt faster.

Along those lines, I was wondering if tax time isn't also an interesting opportunity to offer people government bonds (maybe as an alternative way to get a refund?) and shift at least some of that debt back to US ownership

[janinsanfran]

For as long as I can remember, the War Resisters League has published their own annual version of the expenditure pie chart. They consider a very considerable part of the debt to represent the cost of past military adventures, arriving at a pie chart that shows the majority of any years' expenditures going for war in some way. Depressing and not unreasonable.

[mamayaga]

About 30 years ago a bunch of us (peaceniks, more or less) did something like this at the Illinois State Fair. We called it The Bean Game. We had giant glass jars labeled with the various categories of federal expenditures and a whole batch of dried beans. Each person who came by the booth was given 100 beans and asked to imagine the beans represented the Federal budget, and then allocate it by putting their beans into different jars. At the end of the Fair, we weighed the beans in each jar and compared the results with the actual allocation. Not surprisingly, "defense" was the big loser, and education the big winner, with the latter getting about 20 times the share of beans that it actually gets in dollars. This has been done outside post offices on tax day as well, with the same result.

[emptypockets]

fyi, I think the woman on CSPAN described in the post above was probably Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer Advocate.

Katie and others (including old peaceniks, mamayaga, thanks for the story!) interested in seeing what happens if we push on this -- a good place to start is probably Ms. Olson's office. We may not have to push hard there, since the idea did come from her to begin with! And perhaps they can suggest ways of following-up to show our support.

Olson's number is (202) 622-6100

Since I blog pseudonymously, I usually don't do phone contacts related to blogging and I don't see any email address listed for them, so if someone else is up to giving them a call on Monday and asking about this, please let me know what happens.

[J-Ro]

Nice idea! Here's my pie chart:

I'd cut defense spending by half and give the excess to community development, social programs, law enforcement, and paying down the national debt. So, the percentages might break down like this:

37% social security, etc...
12% defense
9% debt
13% community development
25% social programs
4% law enforcement

Ahh...seems a lot more balenced now doesn't it?

[Leslie in CA]

This is funny - I just had a conversation the other day with my cousin in which I proposed the tax survey idea, and now here it is. Thanks for the contact info, emptypockets.

[Summer]

Social Security has a two trillion surplus which Bush has used to pay expenses. That money was put in there because we knew that the boomers would need more money than the workers could pay.

Medicare takes in a lower percentage but on all earnings so a fortune is sent to Medicare each year. When they outlawed bidding for drugs and health care, plus subsidizing the insurance companies 12% you can see why Medicare is costing more and more.

We pay a lot of the insurance costs of government while they work plus we match the money they put in their savings plan. A lot of the retirement costs go to our elected and appointed officials. We may even pay their insurance after they retire. They didn't like Medicare, it wasn't good enough for them.

They keep raising the cap on Social Security and paying down the debt with it, but when it comes time for the boomers to use that money they will scream that it is costing the worker too much.

Those who paid into Social Security shouldn't have to pay themselves back. They should get to deduct their average yearly pay from their federal taxes before they pay a penny of Social Security.

[Summer]

Social Security has a two trillion surplus which Bush has used to pay expenses. That money was put in there because we knew that the boomers would need more money than the workers could pay.

Medicare takes in a lower percentage but on all earnings so a fortune is sent to Medicare each year. When they outlawed bidding for drugs and health care, plus subsidizing the insurance companies 12% you can see why Medicare is costing more and more.

We pay a lot of the insurance costs of government while they work plus we match the money they put in their savings plan. A lot of the retirement costs go to our elected and appointed officials. We may even pay their insurance after they retire. They didn't like Medicare, it wasn't good enough for them.

They keep raising the cap on Social Security and paying down the debt with it, but when it comes time for the boomers to use that money they will scream that it is costing the worker too much.

Those who paid into Social Security shouldn't have to pay themselves back. They should get to deduct their average yearly pay from their federal taxes before they pay a penny toward paying back Social Security.

They should seperate Social Security and Medicare. We have done our part, paid into Medicare about a thousand dollars a year so we could have affordable insurance when we retired. It is the republicans who are not holding down the costs of medical care and it shouldn't be blamed on the elderly.

Medicare should get rid of the insurance companies and give the elderly a good standard policy without a doughnut hole.

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