The White House has released Your 2010 Federal Taxpayer Receipt:
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama promised that this year, for the first time ever, American taxpayers would be able to go online and see exactly how their federal tax dollars are spent. Just enter a few pieces of information about your taxes, and the taxpayer receipt will give you a breakdown of how your tax dollars are spent on priorities like education, veterans benefits, or health care.
Critics claim that the calculator is overtly political by overstating defense costs and understating Medicare costs and obscuring the costs of unpopular bailouts of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, banks, GM, and AIG by offsetting them with TARP repayments. I previously blogged other online tax receipt calculators from Google (WhatWePayFor.com) and Third Way (www.thirdway.org/taxreceipt). For more, see Slate, Can I Get a Receipt for That?: “An idealistic—and probably hopeless—plan to educate Americans about the budget by sending them itemized ‘tax receipts.’”



