My Taxes are too damn high! But don't cut the Defense Budget!

Ok, I'm getting a LITTLE sick of the people complaining about their income taxes on one hand, then complaining about our lack of commitment to the military on the other.  This is pure cognitive dissonance.


You can access a copy of the Federal Budget of the United States for FY 2011 to verify all of the numbers that I am about to discuss.  I need to give this disclaimer, because honestly, people are just uninformed on these issues.  Go ahead and skip forward to the tables starting on Page 149.


Individual Income Taxes - that is, the personal income taxes that we all LOVE to complain about - accounted for ~43.7% of all revenue collected by the federal government, a total of about $1.121 Trillion or $1,121 Billion.  Outlays, that is - money SPENT by the government, for the Department of Defense and all related Defense and Homeland Security programs, such as the FBI, Atomic Energy, etc. amounted to $702 Billion.  Benefits paid to Veteran's (Veteran's Affairs) accounted for $122 Billion.  So far, we're up to $824 Billion.  And that only includes the so-called On-Budget amounts.  If we factor in OFF-BUDGET amounts for military exercises, such as the Wars in Iran and Afghanistan, and top secret programs where exact funding levels are kept secret, and given as a range, then we're coming right up to the total level of money collected in personal income taxes.


What about all the other programs?  Well, entitlements make up a HUGE amount of government outlays, but they are partially funded by collection of payroll and social security taxes (36.4% of revenue).  And corporate taxes make up another large source (11.6%) of revenue.  Most of the rest of the government is funded by debt.


So...even IF we eliminated Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, shut down all of the Republican's hated programs such as the NEA, Department of Education, etc. AND balanced the budget AND didn't raise taxes...even IF that all happened...if we kept the military budget at its current level, your personal income taxes would still be at the same level.


Ejoy.