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by jhedwards 489 days ago
> But on the other hand, something like 40-50% of my paycheck goes out in taxes and I would prefer if my government actually spent it on things to improve my life versus dumb shit domestically or abroad.

I agree here, but one thing that has come to light recently is that the federal work force is only ~6% of the federal budget. That means that most of those taxes are not going to pay the salaries of government workers.

Also, a lot of the money from our taxes goes to public health, safety, resource management, and infrastructure. I'm happy to pay for things like that. I don't doubt that there is significant waste as well, but there have been a lot of egregious lies lately about how much waste there is and _where_ that waste is located.
2 comments
hackeraccount 488 days ago
I agree a ton the budget is transfer payments. That said I live in the DC metro area and a ton of people are complaining to high heaven - and they aren't technically in the federal work force. They're contractors. People who's jobs depend in large part on federal grants.
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walljm 489 days ago
6% seems suspect. I would expect it to be higher... at least in the 20% to 30% range. Do you have a source?
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Jtsummers 489 days ago
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235#:~:text=In%20fiscal%20...

FY 2022 spending was around $6.75 trillion, civilian pay was $271 billion, or around 4% of the spending for that year. You'll find the numbers have been hovering around 4-5% for quite a while.

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walljm 488 days ago
Ah, ok. Thank you. If you add in the 2.7% for military personel (which doesn't seem to be included here) then you get to about 6-7% of total spending.
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toyg 489 days ago
That actually looks par for the course in "western" governments. The only items going over 20% are typically related to pensions, social security, and health services. Everything else (in isolation) is basically a pittance.
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jhedwards 489 days ago
Sure, here's two: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60235

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/is-government-too-big-ref...

Every publication I've looked at has the overall spending for federal employee salaries as around 280 billion. The total budget is around 6 trillion.

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