Over One-Quarter of Tax Receipts Go to Military
As procrastinators across the country scramble to file their taxes by today’s deadline, it is useful to know where your tax dollars are going.
The largest portion of the nation’s tax receipts will go toward the military, according to the White House.
This year, 26.3 percent of all taxes collected will pay for the nation’s defense. Of that, 10.5 percent will pay for ongoing military operations, namely those in Afghanistan.
The U.S. is currently spending over $2 billion per week on the military conflict that has now lasted nearly a decade.
In 2010, a single taxpayer making $40,000 per year ponied up a total of $1,694 to pay for the conflict in Afghanistan, according to the Brave New Foundation.
“This week we are debating a budget that purports to represent new fiscal restraint, yet continues to borrow tens of billions of dollars for the war in Afghanistan,” Rep. James McGovern (D-MA said Thursday at an event on Capitol Hill organized by Brave New Foundation, a California-based social justice organization. “I’m tired of being told that we don’t have enough money for education or infrastructure or medical research, but we can afford to spend billions of dollars propping up a corrupt regime in Kabul.”
Polls show that the American people are growing tired of the war in Afghanistan, too. A Washington Post-ABC News poll found that nearly two-thirds of Americans now oppose the conflict, the highest number recorded since the war began.
The growing opposition is driven by the extraordinarily high costs of the war, both in terms of lives and dollars.
Since the war began, 1,433 American service members have been killed. Another 10,622 were wounded.
Through the end of the year, the war is expected to cost $1.29 trillion, when combined with the costs of military operations in Iraq.
“President Obama has said that we will begin to withdraw our troops in July of this year. We must hold him to that promise,” McGovern said. “Rather than nation-building in Afghanistan, we need to do some more nation-building right here at home.”
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