4/13/2026 at 5:52:39 PM
by entrapi
4/14/2026 at 2:27:42 PM
I feel like the more interesting one is at a state and local level - besides the people on social security and medicare/aid, and when you travel, connectivity with the federal government feels trivial for the average american. on the state and local level its huge...by balderdash
4/13/2026 at 9:34:02 PM
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?
by wrs
4/13/2026 at 11:19:05 PM
> 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.
by ajross
4/13/2026 at 10:26:21 PM
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.
by wyre
4/13/2026 at 11:20:19 PM
Uh... do you have cash in a money market account? What do you think the "money market" is, exactly?by ajross
4/13/2026 at 11:59:54 PM
In the nicest way possible no absolutely not that would way underperform just about everythingby xphos
4/14/2026 at 12:09:42 AM
Not over the last few months, obviously. But in general I've never known a serious trader who didn't maintain a cash balance at some non-trivial level, if only to maintain liquidity for low-latency bets.But regardless, the point was that all the "cash" you see in your investment accounts (even if you, personally, don't carry any) is predominantly treasuries and other short term high-confidence debt. Everyone owns treasuries, it's only true that very few people "buy" treasury notes.
by ajross
4/14/2026 at 1:03:56 AM
No, my point was that not everyone has an investment account, period.by wyre
4/14/2026 at 1:08:27 AM
Well, your statement was that a "meaningful population of the target audience" did not "have any meaningful amount of treasuries in their portfolio". And that's wrong. Basically everyone holds treasuries. Some people don't. Most people do.by ajross
4/14/2026 at 1:35:12 AM
Look it up. Half of Americans don’t own stock or investment. By any definition that is considered a “meaningful population”.by wyre
4/14/2026 at 7:04:10 AM
It's 62%: https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-own...At what point does that tip to "meaningful population" for you?
by huhkerrf
4/14/2026 at 1:41:49 PM
You're goalpost-moving to the converse of your point, though. You weren't claiming that there was merely a meaningful population who wouldn't benefit, you were stating that there was NO meaningful population that would. Go check. And again, that's wrong.by ajross
4/14/2026 at 1:36:39 PM
lmao, I love the irony of this "how much could one banana cost" replyby y0eswddl
4/14/2026 at 1:43:57 PM
I repeat: almost everyone has some kind of money market instrument, the cash balance of which is stored primarily in US treasuries (along with other short term debt). Almost everyone benefits, to the extent they have that asset, by interest payments from the US government.If you want to make a point about wealth distribution, then make a point about wealth distribution. This was a subthread about government finance policy.
by ajross
4/13/2026 at 9:10:24 PM
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!
by welldoneator
4/13/2026 at 9:56:44 PM
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.by coredog64
4/13/2026 at 10:56:46 PM
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.by ghaff
4/13/2026 at 10:43:53 PM
Another cool site somewhat similar to this is Wealth, shown to scale[1]by Cider9986
4/13/2026 at 9:15:41 PM
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.
by atonse
4/14/2026 at 2:38:47 PM
Haha I was just slightly older than you (Sophomore in college maybe?) and thought, "There, that's fixed."by troyvit
4/13/2026 at 9:50:12 PM
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.
by Steve6
4/13/2026 at 9:59:36 PM
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.by woodruffw
4/13/2026 at 10:41:19 PM
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.
by Steve6
4/13/2026 at 10:48:26 PM
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.
by woodruffw
4/14/2026 at 2:01:17 AM
The original post is about ALL federal spending (funded by taxes). Not just the social safety net. You can't hand wave the bad stuff away. If you want to argue that "fewer people going hungry, [and] dying from treatable conditions" is good, that's fine. I agree. But you can't ignore "inflation, etc." that are caused by the same federal government and wars funded by the same taxes. Saying it "has essentially nothing to do with the matter" is simply not true. It's all related.by Steve6
4/13/2026 at 11:19:46 PM
> 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.
by fhdkweig
4/14/2026 at 2:15:47 AM
I understand. And I get it. I also want the best infrastructure and economy possible. The theory is getting taxes and master planning a big project will eventually pay off more than it costs. But you have to remember, when taxes are involved you're really talking about how to spend other people's money. I would argue that the best way to help people is simply to not tax them and let them spend on the things they value the most.The same argument you're making is commonly used to build tax subsidized sports stadiums. I'm curious if you agree with that as a valid use for local taxes.
In my previous message I mentioned "back door deals with giant corporations and insider trading" as a bad thing. Well, the bigger the master planned project is, the more incentive there is for shenanigans.
by Steve6
4/14/2026 at 11:27:19 AM
Maybe the best criteria would be how many financially benefit from the investment. The stadium probably only benefits the owners, but the electrified town benefits everyone who lives and works in the town.by fhdkweig
4/13/2026 at 10:19:24 PM
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.
by craftkiller
4/14/2026 at 2:31:54 AM
Everyone will have those as their top 4. ;)I agree that helping the elderly, homeless, and hungry is good. Everyone does. The question is: Is the government making a better use of that money than you would? I believe the answer is a strong "NO". You do not get to keep the good and ignore the bad.
Lastly if you've ever walked around any major US city you'll see plenty of elderly, homeless, and hungry folk. So I'm not convinced any money going towards that goal has helped much. Haha
by Steve6
4/13/2026 at 10:19:55 PM
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.by wat10000
4/13/2026 at 10:47:48 PM
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.by CobrastanJorji
4/13/2026 at 9:10:07 PM
Very cool! But I think there’s a cap on social security, it said I paid much more towards that than I did.by DeltaCoast
4/13/2026 at 9:11:22 PM
There definitely is a cap. I believe once you make more than $176k you stop being taxed for thatby clayhacks
4/13/2026 at 9:44:57 PM
Yep the cap was $176,100 for 2025by connicpu
4/14/2026 at 7:23:31 AM
The UK government creates this same breakdown (albeit without the wrapped style) for UK tax payers every year. It's called the Annual Tax Summary and similarly shows a breakdown of how taxes have been, or will be spent by the government. It's interesting to see the difference as a percentage change between how two governments allocate their receipts.by joshftw
4/14/2026 at 1:21:03 AM
You can't meaningfully calculate the budget including social security. This is a trust fund that you get back depending on how much you made and how long you live. And whether the outlays are taxed or not depends on your income at payment.The whole site would be way more informative if social security was broken out.
Even better if it included how much you and your employer spend on health care, because most people are literally spending more because there is no universal health care.
The only thing useful in the whole thing is how much tax money goes to "defense"
by rsingel
4/14/2026 at 1:39:33 AM
>See what the federal government spent with your tax dollars.Is thinking of it in this sense actually accurate? I always assumed since every government has embraced MMT they can spend whatever they want simply by printing it out of thin air. Then taxation could be understood as the only crude knob to "destroy money", and also has the effect of forcing USD to be the primary national currency (e.g. owning bitcoin won't do you any good if you ultimately need to pay taxes in USD).
by krackers
4/14/2026 at 2:03:46 AM
> since every government has embraced MMTThis is doing a lot of imaginary heavy lifting.
by unmole
4/14/2026 at 6:40:39 AM
As an aside, the creator of this site (Riley Walz) has some other awesome projects I’d recommend checking out https://walzr.comby nickvec
4/13/2026 at 10:36:08 PM
>Just like credit cards, the national debt has interest payments the government needs to pay.Something I learned a few years ago: debt is to national debt what a chair is to an electric chair[1]. Government has to increase monetary base when economy grows. National debt is a good thing, where credit cards are just awful.
> Interest doesn't buy anything. It's the price of having spent money we didn't have.
And where does interest go? WHERE DOES INTEREST GO? <insert goose chase meme>
[1] or java to javascript :)
by ed_balls
4/14/2026 at 12:01:41 AM
Should Income Security for Vets count as income security? And Healthcare for Vets, healthcare?It’d be interesting to see how different political factions might rack and stack these line items in different ways.
by vscode-rest
4/13/2026 at 10:11:49 PM
We need to kill of social security. Its an absolute black hole of money and I will never see back anywhere close to the amount I paid in.by voidfunc
4/13/2026 at 10:13:13 PM
we need to kill off fire departments. my house has never burned down and i will never get my money's worth.by onelesd
4/13/2026 at 10:18:02 PM
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.by voidfunc
4/13/2026 at 10:37:26 PM
Sure, but what replaces it?You're talking a catastrophic level of pain and suffering if there's nothing to take its place.
by rl3
4/14/2026 at 5:34:56 AM
Australia simply forces people to save a portion of their income into investable retirement accounts. Because the money goes towards productive investment rather than funding what is essentially a government-run Ponzi scheme, retirees on Superannuation live much better than Americans that rely on Social Security. There is a small Age Pension for those who don’t have enough Superannuation income for whatever reason.In principle the US could phase such a system in by redirecting future Social Security payroll taxes to 401(k)s while maintaining existing commitments. But because Social Security is so deeply underfunded, workers would need to keep up solidarity payments for decades without any expectation of reciprocity once they retire.
Still, everyone would be better off in the long run.
by rainsil
4/13/2026 at 11:31:20 PM
Social security is fucked because it invests only in treasuries. And it has an income cap.by triceratops
4/13/2026 at 10:23:37 PM
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.by wat10000
4/13/2026 at 9:17:40 PM
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.
by mkhalil
4/13/2026 at 11:04:37 PM
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?by c0balt
4/13/2026 at 9:59:51 PM
I was half-afraid this would start with a form prompting you to upload your tax return :Pby pimlottc
4/13/2026 at 9:02:09 PM
This is awesome!It worked great on mobile
by cr125rider
4/13/2026 at 9:10:00 PM
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.)
by ssl-3
4/13/2026 at 9:16:20 PM
>It was impossible to proceed further.Does your mouse have a scroll wheel?
by jjulius
4/13/2026 at 9:24:06 PM
It does.But my mouse's scroll wheel is not a swipey-thing.
by ssl-3
4/13/2026 at 9:33:38 PM
But at least it moves things from "impossible" to "possible"! :)by jjulius
4/13/2026 at 11:03:52 PM
I didn't consider that it meant to use the scroll wheel and likewise closed the page before discovering that.by chungy
4/13/2026 at 10:11:47 PM
It's possible that I will never try visiting that website again. ;)by ssl-3
4/13/2026 at 9:46:00 PM
This is very cool but completely wrong for high earners.by foobiekr
4/13/2026 at 10:28:42 PM
Love this - hoping this goes viral and people actually start talking about the deficitby Rohinator
4/13/2026 at 10:01:10 PM
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.
by ncr100
4/13/2026 at 9:46:40 PM
Kind of insane y'all pay more in taxes for healthcare than I do, yet I get it for free...by slopinthebag
4/13/2026 at 9:47:42 PM
Same reason doctors from around the world move to the US.by jldugger
4/13/2026 at 10:56:57 PM
Another Riley Walz project? Awesome! :)by rconti
4/13/2026 at 9:38:31 PM
The federal government has become a machine to transfer the income of working people to boomersby someguydave
4/13/2026 at 11:47:35 PM
How much goes to retirees vs low income people?by Evidlo
4/13/2026 at 11:48:26 PM
it goes to everyone (in varying amounts) who paid payroll tax when they turn 65. They get free health insurance too (Medicare).poor people getting Medicaid are like 20% of the population of most states.
essentially we are promising everyone who turns 65 to get ~$800k in benefits, and this is simply not affordable.
by someguydave
4/13/2026 at 9:44:55 PM
[dead]by faraway9911