Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Infographic of the Week: Where Does the Federal Government Spend Our Money?
Infographic of the Week: Where Does the Federal Government Spend Our Money?
Nov 12, 2025 9:40 AM

Every year some pollster asks Americans what percentageof the federal budget goes to foreign aid. And every year Americans make a guess that is wildly off the mark. The average answer we give is 26 percent; only 1 out of 20 of us correctly guess that it’s less than 1 percent.

Part of the reason we are wrong is that we’re just really bad at guesstimation. But another reason is that we rarely take the time to find out what is actually in the federal budget.

Fortunately, the Office of Management and Budget has something that can make that process easier. Using their interactive graphic you can explore where your tax dollars go and see what portion of the Federal budget is dedicated to different program areas under President Obama’s proposed budget for 2016.

Even just a glance at the proposed budget will show you that former undersecretary of the Treasury Peter Fisher was right when he described the U.S. government as “an pany with an army.”

Note: This is just a static image. Click here to find the interactive graphic.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Blogging AU (cont.)
Because of the crush of Acton University blogging activity, I’ll be posting mostly links today. Watch for a wrap up in the days ahead. Also, Jordan Ballor’s fine Acton Commentary “Unity or Unanimity at Reformed Council?” was published yesterday in the Detroit News under the headline “Ballor: Church activists shouldn’t adopt separation as doctrine.” Blogging AU: — Grzegorz (Greg) Lewicki explains what we mean by, “Get lost from my porch, or I’ll break your neck right now.” — Jackson Egan...
Adam Smith versus John Maynard Keynes
In the most recent edition of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Acton’s Research Director Samuel Gregg has an article in which he argues that the ongoing financial and economic crisis has raised serious questions about the credibility and usefulness of much mainstream contemporary economics. Drawing partly on his recent book, Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy (2010), Gregg suggests that much mainstream economics after Keynes became gradually dominated by a fixation upon econometrics that has threatened at times to...
Culture and Economic Decline
At MercatorNet, Sheila Liaugminas looks at the bank regulation push — enshrined in another 2,000 page document that few of the legislators behind this effort will actually read. In “Social Order on the Surface” she recalls an Acton conference where she heard this from Rev. Robert A. Sirico: Politicians are not our leaders in a rightly ordered society, they are our followers … Not all views of culture are equal. but we can’t engage socially on our disagreements because everything...
On Cops and Cameras
Gizmodo has an intriguing post about attempts to regulate and even criminalize photography. As Wendy McIlroy reports, “In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.” She goes on to detail some of the exceptions and caveats, noting, The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must...
A Question of English Usage?
Christianity Today looks at the way the State Department has recently begun using the phrase “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion.” The Obama Administration sees these phrases as more or less equivalent. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed the shift in language. In a December speech at Georgetown University, she used “freedom of worship” three times but “freedom of religion” not at all. While addressing senators in January, she referred to “freedom of worship” four times and “freedom...
Evangelicals and Global Warming
This week’s Acton Commentary. Benjamin B. Phillips is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Houston Campus. This commentary was based on an article in the Journal of Markets & Morality (Vol. 12, No. 2). +++++++++ Evangelicals and Global Warming By Benjamin Phillips Since 2005, evangelicals have divided into two roughly opposing camps over the question of anthropogenic global warming. Official statements of the Southern Baptist Convention through its resolution process, its Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission,...
Government and the Good Life
In preparing for an Acton University lecture last week on Christianity and Government (you can listen to it here)[audio: I was reflecting on some of the core differences between a Christian vision of government parison to modern, secular visions. While there is no single Christian vision of government and good Christians can disagree on a host of topics, one of the things that sets apart the Christian vision is a robust vision of the good life and integrated human flourishing...
Acton University Lectures Available Online
We’ve posted a dozen or so AU 2010 lectures in our online store and expect to be putting up many more in the days ahead. They’re priced at $1.99 and transactions are through a secure server at the Acton Institute Digital Downloads page. Check back often. Here’s what available now: — Thoughts on Human Dignity – Rev. Robert A. Sirico – June 15, 2010 — Centralization and Civil Society – Dr. Daniel Mahoney – June 16, 2010 — The Federalist...
Fatal Attraction: Democracy and the Welfare State
At Public Discourse, Acton’s Research Director Samuel Gregg examines why many European governments are so hesitant to engage in much needed but painful economic reforms – especially reforms that involve diminishing the size of expansive welfare states. The causes are many, but in “Fatal Attraction: Democracy and the Welfare State,” Gregg zeroes in on a potentially damaging linkage between democratic systems of government and the growth of large welfare states that seek to provide economic security to ever increasing numbers...
Confessing the Wrong Side
Last week’s Acton Commentary, “Unity or Unanimity at Reformed Council?” was picked up by a number of news outlets, including the Detroit News and the Holland Sentinel. The latter paper published a response to the piece by Jeffrey Japinga, “Intersection of economics and faith is valid subject for church council.” I think Japinga misreads me, and in doing so (perhaps unintentionally) ends up agreeing with me. He thinks that I oppose the Accra Confession because “what it says disagrees with...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved