By the way, the 1040 instructions have a pie chart like this (ref https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf, page 122). Not that most people do taxes themselves, or have a reason to read to page 122 of instructions for a single form. But still it's there and perhaps a nice gesture by the IRS.

Breaking it out into pie charts etc like this can be really helpful. In my view the real kicker with taxes is the opaqueness. Kinda like a meal card versus paying for every meal, or like using a credit card versus paying with cash, it's hard for humans to really grasp what's going on unless they're involved.

Of course it would be impractical to pay taxes separately to every waiting hand in government bureaucracy. But on the other hand maybe the number one goal shouldn't be ease of use, either. Maybe a little friction when paying for public services could be a good thing for citizens who are interested in a healthy country - my opinion.

...I thought I was already sufficiently terrified by the debt numbers...

It is not realistic to believe that we can become a nice wholesome European country if we just raise taxes a bit. The extra money will just be squandered and stolen.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...

Agencies could recommend funding levels, Congress could recommend an allocation and if a taxpayer didn't change it, that default would take effect. But if a taxpayer preferred, they could say, "no, I won't be funding DOD this year". Or space nerds might say "I'm sending 100% of my tax dollars to NASA!"

Of course no one would likely choose to do boring stuff like paying interest on debt. So we'd probably end up with incredibly well-funded national parks and cool space missions, and also a crippling recession due to defaulting on the national debt.

For example, if you have a country on the older side, most people will vote to heavily fund social security at the expense of education. As the demographics change, would be no mechanism to correct the issue. Demographics become destiny.

Similarly, taxes allow rich areas to prop up poor areas of the country. California subsidizes the majority of states for example.

Part of the genius of taxes as a technology is that it allows (forces) a large group of people to coordinate to solve problems that they wouldn’t have otherwise. In the ideal case, it allows smart, forward thinking people to solve collective issues.

One could deduct taxes aren't solving collective issues, otherwise there wouldn't be any given The U.S is the biggest economy in the world yet millions can't even effort decent Healthcare.

The idea breaks down for the rich who are being taxed the most, because nobody wants them to have any say.

You could maybe do it for some percentage of taxes. Perhaps only for things that are desirable but not necessities (maybe Symphonies, science, high arts funding, sports funding, humanities education, BBC, other things people think they shouldn't pay for).

Although that would make people ask for a slider to reduce their taxes (to zero, thank you).

As with voting, implementing your idea would be subject to exploitation. For it to work, you would need a way of ensuring that each taxpayer/voter was authorized to vote, and voted only once. You would need to somehow prevent "harvesting" too.

Those who have an interest in exploiting the system would lobby for built-in weaknesses that they could exploit.

If taxpayers should have the freedom to decide how the money that is taken from them is spent, then why shouldn't they have the freedom to decide how much money they pay?

If taxes aren't collected because the ends justify the means, then the only other option is that they are collected to punish the taxpayers.

The former can be morally justifiable, but how do you justify the latter?

Not to mention the complex semantics and effects of debt in sovereign finance, and actions like increasing or decreasing the money supply etc.

Still, yeah, as an experiment it doesn't seem likely to work. There is probably something to putting people a little closer to the action though.

It's absolutely glorious. I can buy exactly what I need. My monthly utility bills are way lower than anywhere else I've lived.

I cannot believe the populace has been duped into thinking so much of what we fund so direly must be done publicly that armed tax agents need to drag them to prison if they refuse to fund it that way. It is important to remember that everything that is taxed, the underlying method that will be used to enforce that is violence, and very carefully limiting that employ of mass violence.

Trying to think of a place where there is no chance of fire and all I’m coming up with is the moon

I hate these sorts of websites because they have a very intellectual starch to them but are very superficial. I also hate this frame of mind that's like, "nobody would choose to do boring stuff." People aren't stupid. I hate this "voters are stupid" frame of mind. It's unelectable, and it's always said by people who complain about political problems because they misunderstand and think that political problems are math problems. Like that all we need are more sliders. In this specific case, people love paying mortgages, they instantly understand the math of interest rates, and many many people are strongly incentivized to help people understand the magic of mortgages: that you get to both live in the thing you buy, which is useful, and that because you're living in it, people are willing to loan you 10x more than your income to buy it, a kind of leverage that isn't available anywhere else but people who will cut your fingers off if you don't pay them. We are living in your sliders world.

I'd say we spend a lot on things a few people who can maintain/expand power see ROI for power on. Sometimes that's things, sometimes that's just cash for voters and future voters.

The sliders world is more about consent via revenues of the governed, rather than the tax crop they really are.

To some extent? But the sliders would probably be even more extreme. If you are 70 years old you’ll probably vote to put everything on Uncle Sam’s credit card and let younger generations deal with it after you’re dead.

The alternative is Modern Monetary Theory, which states that the government and banking sector money creation fund spending, and governments cannot run out of currency.

Taxes control the money supply and mop up excess funds, which controls inflation.

Bonds set interest rates.

Spending is a strategic and political choice, not something limited by "the deficit" - which is literally just the difference between spending choices and taxation choices.

One very obvious tell is how Republicans make a lot of noise about the deficit and the debt, but always raise both when they're in office.

Always. Why? Because they spend government money lavishly on themselves and their patrons, and cut taxes for themselves and their patrons.

This doesn't "create jobs", it clogs up the system with sclerotic piles of cash that drive an extractive economy that sits on top of the productive economy most people live in.

This is very different economically to stability spending - welfare, healthcare, and such - and investment spending, such as direct funding of education and R&D.

In the MMT, the most significant drivers of inflation are corporate profiteering and supply shocks.

Like oil crises. For example.

Medicaid: 10%

"Safety Net": 7.1%

Social Security: 22.6%

Medicare: 14.2%

53.9% of the federal budget is spent on welfare. That seems roughly in line with most Western nations.

The benefits that are intended to go exclusively to the impoverished though, those are extremely means-tested and often have work requirements or other hoops to jump through.

Only to those who paid into the system and far less than they personally could have earned on investing the same dollars.

They have a 6k sqft house with a basketball court, pool and a pool house in the prime location in West Los Angeles.

They had to join two lots to build to their liking.

0: https://www.statista.com/statistics/283221/per-capita-health...

And there's a pretty straight line between that and government subsidies for sugar and processed foods in general, not to mention car-based infrastructure, although the latter doesn't stop other countries from not having crippling obesity rates.

It’s hard getting normies to admit that if soft drinks weren’t so heavily subsidized by the government at every step of manufacture and distribution, there would be less overall obesity.

The wealthy people that run insurance companies bribe our politicians to keep it that way.

They get that cash price amount from a tiny amount of people, 70% of that price from private insurers, 30-60% from Medicare, less from Medicaid. Even then, they have to basically litigate the bills through private insurance appeals.

If they had one payer which had a single reimbursement rate, they wouldn't have to do these shenanigans.

Speaking as a Canadian, I wonder if at least part of it is the attitude that investments in these areas are "welfare" and not simply a part of the portfolio of essential services that are delivered by the state to citizens?

[1]: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/rankings/quality-...

[2]: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2...

It's got to be desperately frustrating trying to fight this kind of thinking when you've got whole communities who have never even thought to question it.

My main hope at this point is with bottom-up type efforts. Let Mamdani show people that an effective city government can fill potholes and operate a few at-cost supermarkets. Let that be the start of citizens expecting more than chainsaw-waving and twitter meltdowns for their tax dollars.

If anything this speaks to the cost of welfare in America.

The corollary is that many suggestions to reduce welfare spending would lead to even less actual welfare being delivered, without addressing systemic cost problems.

Also, as other commenters mention, the specifics of how money is disbursed or spent, matters. If, say, pharmaceutical companies are allowed to massively over-charge, than the same level of care would mean a higher level of spending than in other world states.

I can only conclude that the reason it hasn't been done is because they don't actually want you to know.

For the federal government, no. Money that is paid in taxes is effectively eliminated. The total number of dollars that exist in circulation is reduced. When the federal government spends money, it is creating all new money. It can’t run out. It’s not your tax money that is being spent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasury_General_Account

> The total number of dollars that exist in circulation is reduced.

Not accurate. Dollars are a liabilities on the books of the Federal Reserve. Tax payments to the federal government only cause a liability shift from commercial banks’ reserves at the FED to the TGA, it doesn’t really change the net amount of dollars in circulation.

The most you could argue is that it momentarily reduces the net commercial banks’ liabilities (which economists call M*) until the Treasury distributes those dollars again to the broad economy

Since that party doesn’t exist I am politically homeless.

[1] - https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/INTERAC...

In this case, though, the best option is probably just to take out the expletive.

Click down into a federal account and then change the drop down over the chart to "Recipient".

Now whether that $1 in 20 years will buy anything is an entirely different story.

Standard & Poor's: AA+

Moody's: Aa1

S&P: "AA+ with stable outlook"

Moody's: "Aa1 stable"

DBRS: "AAA stable"

In terms of FICO scores this would be ~820 or so. The US won't have any problem any time soon getting some more private sector money.

Which is just the tiniest bit worse than Germany, but not much. And it's a lot higher than France.

[1]: https://www.taxpayer.net/budget-appropriations-tax/why-cant-...

[2]: https://www.npr.org/2026/04/03/nx-s1-5772701/trump-budget-de...

https://www.covidmoneytracker.org/

That said, the amount of fraud that was perpetuated here without any follow-through on enforcement is ... extremely not good.

If each claim was investigated closely before paying out, it may have resulted in higher unemployment and lower economic output.

Tax Wrapped 2025

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47755604

They build used car dealerships and strip clubs within walking distance of bases. Sailors blow thousands in an evening at the club, and then drive home in $75k vehicles purchased at predatory interest rates.

Despite significant, potentially life-changing enlistment and re-enlistment bonuses, housing stipends and more - many (or most) enlistees leave the service in debt or near penniless.