Where is my money going?

Even for a numbers geek, such as myself, U.S. spending is a hard thing to wrap my head around. Realizing I indebted myself hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy a house was hard enough.

Reviewing state budgets that throw the word 'billion' around is hard to envision, but possible. ie The state spent more then 5,831 of my houses on Debt Service in 2010. (This is harder to envision when the state does not label, or mislabels data. $1,948 billion, really?)

That is why I love what alot of people are doing with graphical representation of information

http://www.wheredidmytaxdollarsgo.com/

Does just that, allowing me to see, on average, where my federal tax dollars are going.

A state level one could be very interesting...

Massachusetts 10th in the nation in Tax Freedom Day

Massachusetts ranks tenth in the nation in terms of how long its residents must work to pay off the federal, state and local tax man according to the Tax Foundation. Mass taxpayers toil to raise the taxes to pay all governments through April 14, one day before the official federal income tax filing deadline. (Thanks to the holiday Massachusetts taxpayers have until April 19 to file this year).

Overall, American taxpayers will recognize their freedom on April 12.

High-income Connecticut finished first. Its taxpayers will see the light of day on May 2. Mississippi ranked last with a Tax Freedom Day of March 26.

To learn how Tax Freedom Day is calculated visit the Tax Foundation.

Mercatus Center: Say goodbye to interstate competition

Veronique de Rugy and Stefanie Haeffele-Balch:

In theory, fiscal federalism is a great tool that holds state and local governments accountable for their policy actions. In practice, it hardly exists. The increasing scope of federal programs and grants has largely eroded its impact on policy decisions by state and local government to the point that tax considerations become almost irrelevant in people’s decisions about where to live.

By removing the natural check that mobility imposes on bad state tax policy, those who favor expanding the scope of federal government activity make it difficult to correct bad state tax policy.

All other things being equal, it remains less costly to live or run a business in a low-tax rate state than in a high-tax rate one. However, when the central government imposes an ever-increasing percentage of each taxpayer’s total tax burden, differences in state taxes become less important. In other words, if your main tax burden is going to be the same wherever you live, why bother even moving to another state, especially if you get to deduct your state taxes from your federal ones? Being able to deduct state taxes from the federal burden obviates any differences between the states.

So say goodbye to Tiebout.