Death and Taxes: 2009
October 26, 2008 4:25 PM Subscribe
"Death and Taxes: 2009" is a representational poster of the federal discretionary budget; the amount of money that is spent at the discretion of your elected representatives in Congress. Basically, your federal income taxes. (previously)
Man I love this chart, and I'm glad to see the author is doing well enough with the idea to keep producing it each year. I wish we had someone with the same mix of design sense and obsessiveness to do one for Canada.
posted by Popular Ethics at 5:38 PM on October 26, 2008
posted by Popular Ethics at 5:38 PM on October 26, 2008
Christ, 70% on defence ? Those dinamometryc wrenches better be titanium and making coffee too.
posted by elpapacito at 5:55 PM on October 26, 2008
posted by elpapacito at 5:55 PM on October 26, 2008
The main link can be hard to navigate. Thanks for the full res, Static Vagabond.
posted by captainsohler at 6:12 PM on October 26, 2008
posted by captainsohler at 6:12 PM on October 26, 2008
what's the big 'O' in the center about...
What part of the description within the O confused you?
posted by Static Vagabond at 6:17 PM on October 26, 2008
What part of the description within the O confused you?
posted by Static Vagabond at 6:17 PM on October 26, 2008
I always think of this other Death and Taxes first now.
That having been said, I don't like the decision to make 0% red. I'm not sure why it bothers me, but I think it should be a neutral color. It's distracting to keep thinking "look this got cut too" but then see it was actually not changed.
It might also be useful to know what has happened to that part of the budget over a longer time scale; say 5 years. For example the NSF budget was increased this year; but that was after a few years of flat funding (when increases had been promised but didn't occur).
I sort of wonder if similar things are true for other places showing large increases/decreases. Are they just adjustments to get back to a reasonable average? Or did the budget folk decide for some reason that Transportation and Infrastructure Protection is unimportant?
Still I think this is good presentation of a massive amount of data.
posted by nat at 6:58 PM on October 26, 2008
That having been said, I don't like the decision to make 0% red. I'm not sure why it bothers me, but I think it should be a neutral color. It's distracting to keep thinking "look this got cut too" but then see it was actually not changed.
It might also be useful to know what has happened to that part of the budget over a longer time scale; say 5 years. For example the NSF budget was increased this year; but that was after a few years of flat funding (when increases had been promised but didn't occur).
I sort of wonder if similar things are true for other places showing large increases/decreases. Are they just adjustments to get back to a reasonable average? Or did the budget folk decide for some reason that Transportation and Infrastructure Protection is unimportant?
Still I think this is good presentation of a massive amount of data.
posted by nat at 6:58 PM on October 26, 2008
>Christ, 70% on defence ? Those dinamometryc wrenches better be titanium and making coffee too.
What poster are you looking at? Just Social Security and Medicare dwarf Defense...
Oh what you're seeing is that of our "National Security" budget 70% of THAT is military the rest of non-military.... gotta pay the FBI somehow.
Look at the bottom right of the chart.
posted by Jfalways at 7:52 PM on October 26, 2008
What poster are you looking at? Just Social Security and Medicare dwarf Defense...
Oh what you're seeing is that of our "National Security" budget 70% of THAT is military the rest of non-military.... gotta pay the FBI somehow.
Look at the bottom right of the chart.
posted by Jfalways at 7:52 PM on October 26, 2008
If you guys want the key figure of the whole poster, it comes down to this....
Total spending in a single year.... +10%.
And that's before the ten hundred gazillion dollar bailouts.
posted by Jfalways at 7:58 PM on October 26, 2008
Total spending in a single year.... +10%.
And that's before the ten hundred gazillion dollar bailouts.
posted by Jfalways at 7:58 PM on October 26, 2008
Its important to note that this chart is based on the President's budget request, not what actually gets passed.
posted by gsteff at 8:37 PM on October 26, 2008
posted by gsteff at 8:37 PM on October 26, 2008
@nat - 0% is in red because of inflation. If some department gets the same amount as it did last year, it has less spending power this year than last. Inflation has eaten some of it.
This kind of thing reminds me that the George W. Bush (tm) tax cuts weren't really tax cuts at all. It was tax deferral. Reduced tax revenue was replaced with borrowed money that will have to be paid back eventually using - you guessed it - higher taxes.
You're allowed to call it tax cuts when you cut taxes and balance the budget at the same time. Otherwise it's just gutless tax deferral.
posted by thenormshow at 11:28 PM on October 26, 2008 [2 favorites]
This kind of thing reminds me that the George W. Bush (tm) tax cuts weren't really tax cuts at all. It was tax deferral. Reduced tax revenue was replaced with borrowed money that will have to be paid back eventually using - you guessed it - higher taxes.
You're allowed to call it tax cuts when you cut taxes and balance the budget at the same time. Otherwise it's just gutless tax deferral.
posted by thenormshow at 11:28 PM on October 26, 2008 [2 favorites]
You forgot this one Knappster, when the slime deliberately self posted and got banned for it. I wouldn't bother with this if I was paid. Buy my poster - I think not.
posted by tellurian at 11:56 PM on October 26, 2008
posted by tellurian at 11:56 PM on October 26, 2008
Hey, he may not have been too familiar with Metafilter etiquette. That doesn't make it any less awesome of a piece of work.
posted by Phire at 3:40 AM on October 27, 2008
posted by Phire at 3:40 AM on October 27, 2008
Hey, he may not have been too familiar with Metafilter etiquette
Are you shitting me? This guy totally whored himself for the bucks he could earn selling his poster via MetaFilter. This is a great poster (yes, I'm agreeing with you that this is an awesome piece of work) but… it has been posted by many users over several years that don't have a vested interest (as evidenced in the previously links [me amongst them]). He got greedy. Fuck him. I think less of him (and his work) because of that.
If this had been posted to projects (before he was banned) I'd have been totally behind it but now I'm… well I'll let one of my MetaTalk comments speak for me.
posted by tellurian at 6:50 AM on October 27, 2008
Are you shitting me? This guy totally whored himself for the bucks he could earn selling his poster via MetaFilter. This is a great poster (yes, I'm agreeing with you that this is an awesome piece of work) but… it has been posted by many users over several years that don't have a vested interest (as evidenced in the previously links [me amongst them]). He got greedy. Fuck him. I think less of him (and his work) because of that.
If this had been posted to projects (before he was banned) I'd have been totally behind it but now I'm… well I'll let one of my MetaTalk comments speak for me.
posted by tellurian at 6:50 AM on October 27, 2008
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posted by Static Vagabond at 5:01 PM on October 26, 2008