US Federal Budget

US Federal Budget

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I'm a big fan of everything The Upshot does. Here's a link to a recent piece on the US Federal Budget.


They took the budgets from fiscal 2016 and 2020, and divided each item by the US population to get a rough sense of what the government spends per person, and how that spending has changed over the course of this administration. They also sized each number on the page proportionately, so you can see at a glance what the biggest budget items are.


It's a fascinating way to really see where our tax money goes. For example, it only costs about $7 per person to pay the salaries of everyone in Congress. $11 per person for the National Park Service. $23 per person for the federal prison system. $2,260 per person for defense spending. 

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Re: US Federal Budget

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I like the concept and think it provides some important context. The formatting seems a little off, however, because when I first looked at it I nearly missed the text on the right-hand side that gives the spending category. It sort of looks like the first number is a total and the ones below it are subtotals. If they had left justified it or otherwise made it apparent that these are separate categories, I think it would be a stronger graphic.

It would also be interesting if they combined this with data on how much time Congress spends on floor and committee debates for each category. To give one example, funding for the Arts is a popular debate topic and yet, when you look at the number, we spend 97 cents on that category.