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welldoneator 3 days ago [-]
I _really_ enjoyed this and love the concept! Scrolling on desktop was a little odd, but worked really well otherwise.
Content wise it's pretty eye opening just how much of our tax dollars go to things like social security, medicare and interest. Seeing it laid out in the exact dollar amount affecting me is pretty powerful stuff. I wonder how much voting habits would change if this was a common way to communicate the cost of federal programs. I had moments where I was thinking "why are we not spending more on education!" as a result as well.
Awesome work!
coredog64 3 days ago [-]
I'm at work, so just a few seconds to chime in: Educational spending is primarily sourced from the states. If you were to sum state spending on education, you would come up with another eye-watering pile of money. It's just that this money is usually sourced from property taxes and sales taxes and so doesn't show up on a "Here's how your income taxes were spent" analysis.
ghaff 3 days ago [-]
In fact, a lot of educational spending is local. I think something like 65% (maybe more) of my town's property taxes go to K-12 education with a decent chunk of the rest going to emergency services. There are various grants at the state and federal levels but it's mostly local.
Cider9986 3 days ago [-]
Another cool site somewhat similar to this is Wealth, shown to scale[1]
Editorially, it might be good to point out that government money moves in both directions. I spent $X on interest payments on the national debt, but I also received $Y of those interest payments if I have any Treasuries in my portfolio. Similarly, I might be receiving Social Security or Medicare benefits.
Maybe expand this with a second section estimating what you're receiving from the government?
ajross 3 days ago [-]
> Similarly, I might be receiving Social Security or Medicare benefits.
The demographic here is likely to be benefitting most from the mortgage interest deduction and 401k contribution "deduction" (it's deducted before pay is reported, but mathematically it's the same thing), FWIW. Younger folks are probably still paying well under market rate on their guaranteed student loans, and older FAANG scions are very much helped by the very low long term capital gains rate too.
wyre 3 days ago [-]
You exist in a bubble if you think a meaningful population of the target audience of this app have any meaningful amount of treasuries in their portfolio, or any portfolio at all.
I don’t think the website is lacking in describing things that we get from the government.
wrs 2 days ago [-]
An explanation of government that ignores or downplays the effects on part of the constituency wouldn’t be a very good explanation, would it? The government is by definition for everybody, not just a “target audience”.
Even if you ignore people over 65, or over whatever age it is you think people start saving any money, there are plenty of young people with disabilities receiving Medicare benefits.
ajross 3 days ago [-]
Uh... do you have cash in a money market account? What do you think the "money market" is, exactly?
xphos 3 days ago [-]
In the nicest way possible no absolutely not that would way underperform just about everything
ajross 3 days ago [-]
Not over the last few months, obviously. But in general I've never known a serious trader who didn't maintain a cash balance at some non-trivial level, if only to maintain liquidity for low-latency bets.
But regardless, the point was that all the "cash" you see in your investment accounts (even if you, personally, don't carry any) is predominantly treasuries and other short term high-confidence debt. Everyone owns treasuries, it's only true that very few people "buy" treasury notes.
butlike 3 days ago [-]
Money market is just chips on the table. The real investment is money in the pot
wyre 3 days ago [-]
No, my point was that not everyone has an investment account, period.
ajross 3 days ago [-]
Well, your statement was that a "meaningful population of the target audience" did not "have any meaningful amount of treasuries in their portfolio". And that's wrong. Basically everyone holds treasuries. Some people don't. Most people do.
wyre 3 days ago [-]
Look it up. Half of Americans don’t own stock or investment. By any definition that is considered a “meaningful population”.
At what point does that tip to "meaningful population" for you?
ajross 3 days ago [-]
You're goalpost-moving to the converse of your point, though. You weren't claiming that there was merely a meaningful population who wouldn't benefit, you were stating that there was NO meaningful population that would. Go check. And again, that's wrong.
y0eswddl 3 days ago [-]
lmao, I love the irony of this "how much could one banana cost" reply
ajross 3 days ago [-]
I repeat: almost everyone has some kind of money market instrument, the cash balance of which is stored primarily in US treasuries (along with other short term debt). Almost everyone benefits, to the extent they have that asset, by interest payments from the US government.
If you want to make a point about wealth distribution, then make a point about wealth distribution. This was a subthread about government finance policy.
atonse 3 days ago [-]
This is a really cool way to actually educate people about taxes and government spending.
It's crazy that our interest payments are so high. I remember when Clinton actually balanced the budget (no deficit), I was a teenager and couldn't care less. But I only a few years ago started to understand how much that sounds like Sci-Fi in this day and age.
troyvit 3 days ago [-]
Haha I was just slightly older than you (Sophomore in college maybe?) and thought, "There, that's fixed."
Steve6 3 days ago [-]
This is amazing and depressing. Most people will never get any benefit from this spending, definitely not of equal value to what you contributed/lost/spent. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum you should be disappointed by the federal governments reckless spending. Yet it never gets better. Likely never will.
I see other people recommending taxes that are missed, but with people being taxed from every angle it's impossible to accurately measure tax burden. That's by design.
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
But... Even death does not save you from taxes.
woodruffw 3 days ago [-]
The visualization shows that, at many income brackets, the majority of one's taxes go squarely into the social safety net. You can make an intelligible argument about waste, etc., but to say that Americans don't benefit from social security, medicaid, etc. seems facially incorrect.
Steve6 3 days ago [-]
Even if you ignore ALL other tax spending (which is a huge ask) the best possible outcome is $1 in = $1 out. That breaks even at best. The government isn't creating value it's just moving money around.
Now add in other wasteful spending. Add in inefficiencies. Add in the deficit. Add in inflation and money printing. Add changing administrations with their own goals. Add wars and other foreign affairs. Add in spying on citizens. Add in back door deals with giant corporations and insider trading.
Saying "If you ignore all the bad parts, the government is beneficial" is not a strong argument.
There are SOME people who benefit from the social safety net. But as a whole it's largely a drain on everyone else.
woodruffw 3 days ago [-]
That's not really how taxes work. Some of your mine (and mine) is essentially front-loaded into today's social safety net, ensuring that the poor, infirm, etc. are afforded certain minimums in terms of quality of life.
The $1 I put into that doesn't "come back" to me in cash; I get it in the form of a society that has fewer people going hungry, dying from treatable conditions, etc. This is where the argument around efficiency, waste, etc. can be made, but waxing about inflation, etc. has essentially nothing to do with the matter.
Steve6 3 days ago [-]
The original post is about ALL federal spending (funded by taxes). Not just the social safety net. You can't hand wave the bad stuff away. If you want to argue that "fewer people going hungry, [and] dying from treatable conditions" is good, that's fine. I agree. But you can't ignore "inflation, etc." that are caused by the same federal government and wars funded by the same taxes. Saying it "has essentially nothing to do with the matter" is simply not true. It's all related.
fhdkweig 3 days ago [-]
> Even if you ignore ALL other tax spending (which is a huge ask) the best possible outcome is $1 in = $1 out. That breaks even at best. The government isn't creating value it's just moving money around.
It is possible to spend money that gets more money back later. Think of investing in infrastructure that creates more economic activity. Imagine how much better the economy grew once we connected the transcontinental railroads and electrified towns. These were huge projects that no one could have funded on their own, but with coordination with all the money from everyone else. I can't think of any other way to coordinate that much money without getting taxes involved.
Steve6 3 days ago [-]
I understand. And I get it. I also want the best infrastructure and economy possible. The theory is getting taxes and master planning a big project will eventually pay off more than it costs. But you have to remember, when taxes are involved you're really talking about how to spend other people's money. I would argue that the best way to help people is simply to not tax them and let them spend on the things they value the most.
The same argument you're making is commonly used to build tax subsidized sports stadiums. I'm curious if you agree with that as a valid use for local taxes.
In my previous message I mentioned "back door deals with giant corporations and insider trading" as a bad thing. Well, the bigger the master planned project is, the more incentive there is for shenanigans.
fhdkweig 3 days ago [-]
Maybe the best criteria would be how many financially benefit from the investment. The stadium probably only benefits the owners, but the electrified town benefits everyone who lives and works in the town.
craftkiller 3 days ago [-]
My top category was social security, followed by medicare. If I live long enough, I'll benefit from both of these. But regardless, these are great things to put our money towards. I'd much rather lose a couple tens of thousands per year than have our elderly dying homeless and hungry.
The next category was military which I think we can all agree that US spends too much on the military but it would be silly to claim that I don't benefit from the pax americana.
The next category was interest on debt... Which yeah... not stoked about that.
Steve6 3 days ago [-]
Everyone will have those as their top 4. ;)
I agree that helping the elderly, homeless, and hungry is good. Everyone does. The question is: Is the government making a better use of that money than you would? I believe the answer is a strong "NO". You do not get to keep the good and ignore the bad.
Lastly if you've ever walked around any major US city you'll see plenty of elderly, homeless, and hungry folk. So I'm not convinced any money going towards that goal has helped much. Haha
wat10000 3 days ago [-]
Most of the money goes to Social Security, Medicare, and the military. I don’t currently benefit from the first two, but I will if I live long enough. (Reports of SS’s demise are exaggerated. The worst case when it runs out of money is that benefits are cut, not that it disappears entirely.) The benefit of the military is debatable but I would argue that there definitely is a benefit, although we spend a lot more than we really need to.
CobrastanJorji 3 days ago [-]
It says I contributed money to Humanitarian assistance, but is that based on the budget or based on what was actually spent? Because there's been something of a recent Constitutional problem with budget money not actually being spent on its intended targets.
DeltaCoast 3 days ago [-]
Very cool! But I think there’s a cap on social security, it said I paid much more towards that than I did.
clayhacks 3 days ago [-]
There definitely is a cap. I believe once you make more than $176k you stop being taxed for that
connicpu 3 days ago [-]
Yep the cap was $176,100 for 2025
nickvec 3 days ago [-]
As an aside, the creator of this site (Riley Walz) has some other awesome projects I’d recommend checking out https://walzr.com
rsingel 3 days ago [-]
You can't meaningfully calculate the budget including social security. This is a trust fund that you get back depending on how much you made and how long you live. And whether the outlays are taxed or not depends on your income at payment.
The whole site would be way more informative if social security was broken out.
Even better if it included how much you and your employer spend on health care, because most people are literally spending more because there is no universal health care.
The only thing useful in the whole thing is how much tax money goes to "defense"
krackers 3 days ago [-]
>See what the federal government spent with your tax dollars.
Is thinking of it in this sense actually accurate? I always assumed since every government has embraced MMT they can spend whatever they want simply by printing it out of thin air. Then taxation could be understood as the only crude knob to "destroy money", and also has the effect of forcing USD to be the primary national currency (e.g. owning bitcoin won't do you any good if you ultimately need to pay taxes in USD).
unmole 3 days ago [-]
> since every government has embraced MMT
This is doing a lot of imaginary heavy lifting.
ed_balls 3 days ago [-]
>Just like credit cards, the national debt has interest payments the government needs to pay.
Something I learned a few years ago: debt is to national debt what a chair is to an electric chair[1]. Government has to increase monetary base when economy grows. National debt is a good thing, where credit cards are just awful.
> Interest doesn't buy anything. It's the price of having spent money we didn't have.
And where does interest go? WHERE DOES INTEREST GO? <insert goose chase meme>
[1] or java to javascript :)
joshftw 3 days ago [-]
The UK government creates this same breakdown (albeit without the wrapped style) for UK tax payers every year. It's called the Annual Tax Summary and similarly shows a breakdown of how taxes have been, or will be spent by the government. It's interesting to see the difference as a percentage change between how two governments allocate their receipts.
balderdash 3 days ago [-]
I feel like the more interesting one is at a state and local level - besides the people on social security and medicare/aid, and when you travel, connectivity with the federal government feels trivial for the average american. on the state and local level its huge...
vscode-rest 3 days ago [-]
Should Income Security for Vets count as income security? And Healthcare for Vets, healthcare?
It’d be interesting to see how different political factions might rack and stack these line items in different ways.
DerArzt 3 days ago [-]
Neat idea, but no way in hell am I giving my info to that site.
A snakey diagram with percentages would have been cool for the weirdos like me.
voidfunc 3 days ago [-]
We need to kill of social security. Its an absolute black hole of money and I will never see back anywhere close to the amount I paid in.
onelesd 3 days ago [-]
we need to kill off fire departments. my house has never burned down and i will never get my money's worth.
voidfunc 3 days ago [-]
This is a strawman. Look up how utterly fucked social security is and tell me with a straight face it is a good system and you'll get value from it.
wat10000 3 days ago [-]
The most fucked thing about SS is that the tax is capped. Somebody struggling on a minimum wage job is paying the full rate, while I get to stop paying partway through the year. Remove the cap and it starts to look quite a bit healthier.
rl3 3 days ago [-]
Sure, but what replaces it?
You're talking a catastrophic level of pain and suffering if there's nothing to take its place.
rainsil 3 days ago [-]
Australia simply forces people to save a portion of their income into investable retirement accounts. Because the money goes towards productive investment rather than funding what is essentially a government-run Ponzi scheme, retirees on Superannuation live much better than Americans that rely on Social Security. There is a small Age Pension for those who don’t have enough Superannuation income for whatever reason.
In principle the US could phase such a system in by redirecting future Social Security payroll taxes to 401(k)s while maintaining existing commitments. But because Social Security is so deeply underfunded, workers would need to keep up solidarity payments for decades without any expectation of reciprocity once they retire.
Still, everyone would be better off in the long run.
triceratops 3 days ago [-]
Social security is fucked because it invests only in treasuries. And it has an income cap.
mkhalil 3 days ago [-]
So we spent more on interest for the deficit than we spent on the doubling the combined spending on all of the following:
transportation
government operations
natural resources
community development
education & social services
agriculture
international affairs
science & space
and energy
...anxiety rises.
c0balt 3 days ago [-]
Not really. That is federal spending, right? So your local transport authority or most of the funding of a local schopl, for example, wouldn't be included here?
silexia 3 days ago [-]
It would be interesting to see the massive amounts that go to fraud and waste.
minorthreat 24 hours ago [-]
I built the same for Germany steuerwrapped.com
slopinthebag 3 days ago [-]
Kind of insane y'all pay more in taxes for healthcare than I do, yet I get it for free...
jldugger 3 days ago [-]
Same reason doctors from around the world move to the US.
pimlottc 3 days ago [-]
I was half-afraid this would start with a form prompting you to upload your tax return :P
Rohinator 3 days ago [-]
Love this - hoping this goes viral and people actually start talking about the deficit
cr125rider 3 days ago [-]
This is awesome!
It worked great on mobile
ssl-3 3 days ago [-]
It got stuck on desktop.
It worked fine until it got to the point where it showed me how many tax dollars I contributed in 2025, and had a little popup fade in (and disappear again) that said "Swipe to continue"
That was the end of the road for me. It was impossible to proceed further.
(These UI non-elements can all go die in a fire together.)
jjulius 3 days ago [-]
>It was impossible to proceed further.
Does your mouse have a scroll wheel?
ssl-3 3 days ago [-]
It does.
But my mouse's scroll wheel is not a swipey-thing.
jjulius 3 days ago [-]
But at least it moves things from "impossible" to "possible"! :)
chungy 3 days ago [-]
I didn't consider that it meant to use the scroll wheel and likewise closed the page before discovering that.
ssl-3 3 days ago [-]
It's possible that I will never try visiting that website again. ;)
foobiekr 3 days ago [-]
This is very cool but completely wrong for high earners.
ncr100 3 days ago [-]
I wonder what the various billionaires pay in federal tax.
I know there's not just one type of billionaire, but many, And I wonder if any are more or less significant than each other to the Nations financial Health.
butlike 3 days ago [-]
Now imagine if you could choose the buckets and allotments. It's like "ok, you paid $25,000 in taxes. $7000 of that has to go to paying the interest, cause fuck you, but you can allocate the other $18,000 as you see fit (into a minimum of 3 buckets)."
rconti 3 days ago [-]
Another Riley Walz project? Awesome! :)
someguydave 3 days ago [-]
The federal government has become a machine to transfer the income of working people to boomers
Evidlo 3 days ago [-]
How much goes to retirees vs low income people?
someguydave 3 days ago [-]
it goes to everyone (in varying amounts) who paid payroll tax when they turn 65. They get free health insurance too (Medicare).
poor people getting Medicaid are like 20% of the population of most states.
essentially we are promising everyone who turns 65 to get ~$800k in benefits, and this is simply not affordable.
Content wise it's pretty eye opening just how much of our tax dollars go to things like social security, medicare and interest. Seeing it laid out in the exact dollar amount affecting me is pretty powerful stuff. I wonder how much voting habits would change if this was a common way to communicate the cost of federal programs. I had moments where I was thinking "why are we not spending more on education!" as a result as well.
Awesome work!
[1] https://wealth.ronnycoste.com/
Maybe expand this with a second section estimating what you're receiving from the government?
The demographic here is likely to be benefitting most from the mortgage interest deduction and 401k contribution "deduction" (it's deducted before pay is reported, but mathematically it's the same thing), FWIW. Younger folks are probably still paying well under market rate on their guaranteed student loans, and older FAANG scions are very much helped by the very low long term capital gains rate too.
I don’t think the website is lacking in describing things that we get from the government.
Even if you ignore people over 65, or over whatever age it is you think people start saving any money, there are plenty of young people with disabilities receiving Medicare benefits.
But regardless, the point was that all the "cash" you see in your investment accounts (even if you, personally, don't carry any) is predominantly treasuries and other short term high-confidence debt. Everyone owns treasuries, it's only true that very few people "buy" treasury notes.
At what point does that tip to "meaningful population" for you?
If you want to make a point about wealth distribution, then make a point about wealth distribution. This was a subthread about government finance policy.
It's crazy that our interest payments are so high. I remember when Clinton actually balanced the budget (no deficit), I was a teenager and couldn't care less. But I only a few years ago started to understand how much that sounds like Sci-Fi in this day and age.
I see other people recommending taxes that are missed, but with people being taxed from every angle it's impossible to accurately measure tax burden. That's by design.
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
But... Even death does not save you from taxes.
Now add in other wasteful spending. Add in inefficiencies. Add in the deficit. Add in inflation and money printing. Add changing administrations with their own goals. Add wars and other foreign affairs. Add in spying on citizens. Add in back door deals with giant corporations and insider trading.
Saying "If you ignore all the bad parts, the government is beneficial" is not a strong argument.
There are SOME people who benefit from the social safety net. But as a whole it's largely a drain on everyone else.
The $1 I put into that doesn't "come back" to me in cash; I get it in the form of a society that has fewer people going hungry, dying from treatable conditions, etc. This is where the argument around efficiency, waste, etc. can be made, but waxing about inflation, etc. has essentially nothing to do with the matter.
It is possible to spend money that gets more money back later. Think of investing in infrastructure that creates more economic activity. Imagine how much better the economy grew once we connected the transcontinental railroads and electrified towns. These were huge projects that no one could have funded on their own, but with coordination with all the money from everyone else. I can't think of any other way to coordinate that much money without getting taxes involved.
The same argument you're making is commonly used to build tax subsidized sports stadiums. I'm curious if you agree with that as a valid use for local taxes.
In my previous message I mentioned "back door deals with giant corporations and insider trading" as a bad thing. Well, the bigger the master planned project is, the more incentive there is for shenanigans.
The next category was military which I think we can all agree that US spends too much on the military but it would be silly to claim that I don't benefit from the pax americana.
The next category was interest on debt... Which yeah... not stoked about that.
I agree that helping the elderly, homeless, and hungry is good. Everyone does. The question is: Is the government making a better use of that money than you would? I believe the answer is a strong "NO". You do not get to keep the good and ignore the bad.
Lastly if you've ever walked around any major US city you'll see plenty of elderly, homeless, and hungry folk. So I'm not convinced any money going towards that goal has helped much. Haha
The whole site would be way more informative if social security was broken out.
Even better if it included how much you and your employer spend on health care, because most people are literally spending more because there is no universal health care.
The only thing useful in the whole thing is how much tax money goes to "defense"
Is thinking of it in this sense actually accurate? I always assumed since every government has embraced MMT they can spend whatever they want simply by printing it out of thin air. Then taxation could be understood as the only crude knob to "destroy money", and also has the effect of forcing USD to be the primary national currency (e.g. owning bitcoin won't do you any good if you ultimately need to pay taxes in USD).
This is doing a lot of imaginary heavy lifting.
Something I learned a few years ago: debt is to national debt what a chair is to an electric chair[1]. Government has to increase monetary base when economy grows. National debt is a good thing, where credit cards are just awful.
> Interest doesn't buy anything. It's the price of having spent money we didn't have.
And where does interest go? WHERE DOES INTEREST GO? <insert goose chase meme>
[1] or java to javascript :)
It’d be interesting to see how different political factions might rack and stack these line items in different ways.
A snakey diagram with percentages would have been cool for the weirdos like me.
You're talking a catastrophic level of pain and suffering if there's nothing to take its place.
In principle the US could phase such a system in by redirecting future Social Security payroll taxes to 401(k)s while maintaining existing commitments. But because Social Security is so deeply underfunded, workers would need to keep up solidarity payments for decades without any expectation of reciprocity once they retire.
Still, everyone would be better off in the long run.
transportation government operations natural resources community development education & social services agriculture international affairs science & space and energy
...anxiety rises.
It worked great on mobile
It worked fine until it got to the point where it showed me how many tax dollars I contributed in 2025, and had a little popup fade in (and disappear again) that said "Swipe to continue"
That was the end of the road for me. It was impossible to proceed further.
(These UI non-elements can all go die in a fire together.)
Does your mouse have a scroll wheel?
But my mouse's scroll wheel is not a swipey-thing.
I know there's not just one type of billionaire, but many, And I wonder if any are more or less significant than each other to the Nations financial Health.
poor people getting Medicaid are like 20% of the population of most states.
essentially we are promising everyone who turns 65 to get ~$800k in benefits, and this is simply not affordable.