Satanic Vility At The Washington Post. Where Your Tax Money Goes In One Chart

Alan: A recent Washington Post linked to "Where Your Taxes Go, In One Chart" by Matthew Iglesias. http://www.vox.com/2014/4/14/5611944/where-your-tax-dollars-go-in-one-chart   Not only is this article grossly misleading, its slatternly statement that 24% of Americans' federal tax dollars pay for Social Security is beyond libelous. Were I a Christian fundamentalist I would categorize this misinformation as Satanic. Not only does Social Security pay its own way without a single dollar of federal tax input, the Social Security trust fund -- which guarantees EVERY Social Security payment for the next 25 years -- serves as the federal government's "piggy bank," a kind of in-house loan agency from which the feds borrow at will. If America's second most important newspaper can propagate such brazen lies, what is the mainstream press not capable of?  Would it have us believe the Holocaust didn't happen? That George Bush's Whimsy War was a stroke of political genius? That Charles Manson did not kill Sharon Tate? That Mother Theresa operated brothels for John Paul II?

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"Social Security, because it is funded by the payroll tax, not the U.S. Treasury, 

has not contributed one nickel to our deficit."

Sen. Bernie Sanders

More Sanders Quotes

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/04/sen-barry-sanders-greedy-billionaires.html

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"Where Your Taxes Go, In One Chart"

Matthew Yglesias in Vox.

I was doing some last minuted tax preparation over the weekend (and lamenting the facts in this video) and I probably wasn't the only one. Tax filing season is always a good opportunity to revisit this graphic from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that highlights what it is the federal government is spending your money on.

Even though the government runs a somewhat bewildering array of programs, you can see here that just a few of them combine to account for the bulk of the money.

These are the big program areas you would have to cut if you wanted to downside the federal government in a major way. As the saying goes, the government is an insurance company with an army — it takes care of the elderly and the sick, and it projects force abroad.

The important thing to know about this politically is that these big programs — and especially the two biggest, Social Security and the military — tend to be the least politically contentious. In practice we see a lot of very heated very ideological arguments that are mostly focused on a relatively small slice of the budget.

As a substantive matter, the striking thing about this budget breakdown is that education, scientific research, and infrastructure combine for remarkably modest 6 percent of the federal budget. That's our "investment in the future" portfolio and it's pretty meager.