Where Federal taxes are raised and spent. "Some American states receive more in federal spending than they pay in federal taxes; others receive less. Over twenty years these fiscal transfers can add up to a sizeable sum."
A graph of the United States, color-coded to indicate surplus or deficit.
posted by dubold
on Aug 6, 2011 -
52 comments
How two American kids became big-time weapons traders - "Working with nothing but an Internet connection, a couple of cellphones and a steady supply of weed, the two friends — one with a few college credits, the other a high school dropout — had beaten out Fortune 500 giants like General Dynamics to score the huge arms contract. With a single deal, two stoners from Miami Beach had turned themselves into the least likely merchants of death in history." (
via; previously on
arms contractors)
posted by kliuless
on Mar 21, 2011 -
69 comments
The
Program for Public Consultation carried out a different kind of budget poll -- they asked each of their respondents to generate a package of tax increases and spending cuts sufficient for substantial deficit reduction, then averaged the results.
The outcome was not what you might expect. The mean package included twice as much tax increase as spending cut: big deficit-reducing moves included substantial income tax increases for the highest brackets and deep cuts in defense spending. Republicans cut less spending than Democrats, as did people who identified as "very sympathetic to the Tea Party." Hardly anybody likes the reduction of the estate tax. Why is the public consensus so different from the Washington consensus?
Read the full report (.pdf) Or
try the interactive budget exercise.
posted by escabeche
on Mar 6, 2011 -
52 comments
Make Work[1,2,3] or:
How I Learned[4,5] to
Stop Worrying[6] and
Love Deficit Spending[7,8,9] (during a
general glut at the
zero bound) --
When I was a kid, if I was sitting around the house and complained I didn't have anything to do, my mom would always respond the same way. "I'll find something for you to do," and she would. It was make work, she was finding something for me to do on the spot to cure my unemployment problem... [more inside]
posted by kliuless
on Jun 8, 2010 -
33 comments
The UK Government has published extracts from COINS, the
Combined Online Information System used by the Treasury to track all public spending by the Government. Together, the
files constitute about 11Gb of data in delimited text format containing consolidated financial information for each department and account type.
[more inside]
posted by Electric Dragon
on Jun 4, 2010 -
3 comments
Overly confident in the economic health of the United States? Feeling sanguine about current spending levels? Haven't yet been scared out of your wits about your financial future? No worries! The
U.S. National Debt Clock page is for you! Your one stop shop for all things financial meltdown related: Total debt, debt per citizen, budget deficits and spending year-to-date, total governmental bailouts, and much much more!
posted by Justinian
on Jun 26, 2009 -
77 comments
The Next New Deal With the vaunted post-Cold War "Peace dividend" evaporating, the United States found itself unable to invest adequately in either its infrastructure or its children. Eventually people began to talk of another Great Depression, before the coming of the next New Deal.
posted by Kwantsar
on Oct 1, 2008 -
8 comments
Want to know how government spending and taxation levels have gone up or down over the last 20 years, and how they compare with other countries? The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has a handy set of tables (
Excel,
HTML-ized by Google): total spending, total revenues, fiscal surplus or deficit (
Norway's surplus is 17% of GDP). Part of the
statistical tables for the semi-annual
OECD Outlook.
posted by russilwvong
on May 30, 2008 -
6 comments
Krugman on Iraq "The direct military cost of the occupation is $4 billion a month, and there's no end in sight. But that's only part of the bill.
This week Paul Bremer suddenly admitted that Iraq would need "several tens of billions" in aid next year. That remark was probably aimed not at the public but at his masters in Washington; he apparently needed to get their attention."
posted by skallas
on Aug 30, 2003 -
41 comments
Political Fratricide: The GOP is reportedly [
+] proposing $15 billion of cuts — or is it $25? — in veterans' benefits between now and 2007, and groups like the
Veterans Against the Iraq War are hopping mad. Hell, I imagine the pro-war wing is pretty peeved, too. It's part of a plan
with delusions of grandeur to deliver massive tax cuts AND kill the deficit ... you know, the one that did not exist before W was elected, as I understand it ... in six years. The original tip is from
Stand Down. The actual status of the cuts is nebulous at this point, however, with the
SF Chron reporting that they will likely fail in the Senate as the tax cut is halved and
others reporting that the die is not yet cast. The House budget resolution, for metafilter accountants who like these things, is
here.
posted by hairyeyeball
on Apr 1, 2003 -
12 comments
"Hang in there, help is on the way." The director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., recently asked the Defense Department to lower the 2004 pay raise from its expected 3.7 percent to 2 percent. Daniels also wants future raises tied to inflation, rather than basing boosts on what civilians doing comparable jobs in the private sector might make.
Many of our military families already qualify for welfare and food stamps. Pay raises are out of the question when there's NMD and tax cuts to the wealthy needing funding.
posted by nofundy
on Dec 23, 2002 -
7 comments
Welcome to the State Department... I mean, the Republican Party. "For some time, travelers browsing the State Department Web site for helpful tips about Guadalajara, Mexico, found much more than they bargained for when they clicked on a photograph of President Bush. The click transported them to a partisan playground, where they were told how to get involved with the Republican Party and even how to donate money to it."
(Why does nytimes.com have all the good stories?- metafilter, metafilter)
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy
on Sep 13, 2002 -
11 comments
The U.S. Army pays for lapdances. "In addition to the inappropriate purchases, the GAO said more than 1,200 Army employees wrote bad checks to pay their government credit card bills. Last year alone, that cost taxpayers $3.8 million in higher fees and lost rebates." You mean, the government practices bad accounting?
Ron Paul points out that the Congress commits the
worst accounting fraud of all. But the most important issue of all is, with the government paying for Strip Club tips, gambling, and wine, does this mean that God will no longer bless America?
posted by insomnyuk
on Jul 18, 2002 -
18 comments
You're the king of a small african nation. You have an annual health budget of $15 million. Two-thirds of the people in your nation are HIV positive, and two-thirds are living below the poverty line. What do you do? Why, you
buy a $31 million private jet, of course!
posted by Reggie452
on Jul 8, 2002 -
27 comments
Jaw-drop-inducing link of the day The federal government spent $62 million on a building to store and treat low-level radioactive waste at a California nuclear weapons laboratory, then decided the structure wasn't secure enough. So where is the waste kept now?
... Right outside the new building, under tents.
posted by magullo
on Jun 10, 2002 -
11 comments
The Red Cross has a decade-long pattern of using local crises to raise funds, and then to spend those funds on other things. The donors had thought their money would go to help specific victims, and sometimes up to 80% would be diverted to other causes. I think this is wrong.
posted by Steven Den Beste
on Nov 19, 2001 -
39 comments
"The sky won't fall, it will probably just trickle down." On whom? (Guess who.) Out here in Washington State voters just approved another in a series of initiatives that, collectively, choke off the state government's primary funding sources. What else are the results of the initiative process around the country? And are The People responsible enough to be trusted with it?
posted by argybarg
on Nov 8, 2001 -
30 comments
Costly habits. Are you broke again? Don't know where your money is going? Take a look at what you're spending your money on. Chances are, if you're supporting bad habits such as smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, or using marijuana or other illicit substances, you're spending quite a chunk of change. If you don't believe it, try out this expense calculator and see how much money you could be spending on something else!
posted by twistedonion
on Oct 9, 2001 -
26 comments
Percent of World Military Spending. The US and its allies dwarf the rest of
the world in what it spends on defense. On the one hand I see the need to
bring overwhelming force in a conflict and I think just having it is in
itself stabilizing. But I can also see money and resources put to better
use elsewhere (e.g. healthcare, education, basic research) the effects of
which I think might even do more to affect global peace and prosperity than
any loss that may obtain from a reduced defense budget.
(other
Thoughts of the Fortnight by J. Bradford DeLong including this
draft he presented with Larry Summers! at the Fed symposium in Jackson Hole :)
posted by kliuless
on Sep 1, 2001 -
36 comments
"Big government is good for you,
and we'll spare no expense making sure you know it!" New figures show the largest advertiser in the UK is now the British government, with the government blowing about 2 1/2 times as much on ads per year as it did before before Labour's rise to power. This is far more than than any other country's government spends. Dissemination of truly important information, or taxpayer-funded plugs for Labour?
posted by aaron
on Apr 17, 2001 -
16 comments
