Where your tax dollars go

Soap box time. Ahem.

Want to look at an intimidating chart? Check this out.

Visual guide to where your tax dollars go

This chart, or menagerie of graphs, shows how the tax dollars are divvied up between government programs and departments. I especially like the small pie chart using the dime near the upper right corner. The pie chart shows where the $$ comes from to fund government programs. The $$ used by the government comes from individual taxes, corporate taxes, employers' portions of taxes contributed per employee, estate taxes (and similar stuff), and money borrowed by the government. Notice that individual taxes make up over half of the money needed by the government. Employers and corporations make up about 25% of the money needed by the government. Those are the people we work for, or ourselves if self-employed. When the government needs more tax money to fund more programs, where will that tax money come from? You, me, our family members, and our neighbors if all of us provide over half the taxes needed by the government. If people making over $250000 per year make up about 10% of all individuals, how does increasing their taxes really help much? The rest of us will be asked to chip in some day. If you own a business, you get a double whammy through increased corporate and employer taxes plus individual taxes. Where's the incentive to be self-employed? Gotta wonder where our country is going and if it's worth it to take care of yourself instead of being on the government dole.

Rant completed. For now.