This is a project designed to answer two questions:
- How much am I taxed?
- Where does every dollar go?
The concept is simple: calculate my taxes, then apportion it according to the U.S. budget.
The kicker is that I want this to be automated: to be able to update every year to match my income, new tax codes, and new budgets. To accomplish this I'm planning to parse IRS publications (which are hopefully formatted consistenly), and budget laws.
This is part of a much larger project, Res publica: an attempt to inform my vote by making the law relevant and concrete.
How much am I paying, not just for Medicare and Social Security, but for NASA? The EPA? Congress's salaries? NOAA? The FCC? Welfare benefits?
There's always been a disconnect between national taxes and budgets: they're frequently changed independently of one another, according to philosophies of government rather than real valuations: how much am I paying, and how much am I getting?
Furthermore, we always want tax raises to be on someone else. How would my taxes go up if I made minimum wage over a year ($15,000)? Median income ($60,000)? $100,000? $1,000,000?