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?

> 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.

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.

Uh... do you have cash in a money market account? What do you think the "money market" is, exactly?

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.

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!

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.

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.

Another cool site somewhat similar to this is Wealth, shown to scale[1]

[1] https://wealth.ronnycoste.com/

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.

Very cool! But I think there’s a cap on social security, it said I paid much more towards that than I did.

There definitely is a cap. I believe once you make more than $176k you stop being taxed for that

Yep the cap was $176,100 for 2025

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

I was half-afraid this would start with a form prompting you to upload your tax return :P

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.

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?

Love this - hoping this goes viral and people actually start talking about the deficit

This is very cool but completely wrong for high earners.

we need to kill off fire departments. my house has never burned down and i will never get my money's worth.

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.

Social security is fucked because it invests only in treasuries. And it has an income cap.

Sure, but what replaces it?

You're talking a catastrophic level of pain and suffering if there's nothing to take its place.

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.

This is awesome!

It worked great on mobile

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.)

>It was impossible to proceed further.

Does your mouse have a scroll wheel?

It does.

But my mouse's scroll wheel is not a swipey-thing.

But at least it moves things from "impossible" to "possible"! :)

I didn't consider that it meant to use the scroll wheel and likewise closed the page before discovering that.

It's possible that I will never try visiting that website again. ;)

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.

Kind of insane y'all pay more in taxes for healthcare than I do, yet I get it for free...

Same reason doctors from around the world move to the US.

Another Riley Walz project? Awesome! :)