Note, prior to making this thread, I've already done a decent (admittedly just decent, not exhaustive by any means) amount of research into this.
I am very very curious to know the US Government's spending. By this I mean what it actually spends money on (how much is payroll, how much is SS / medicare, how much is infrastructure, how much is military, for all of the previous, where and when is the money going specifically), where it gets that money (how much from taxes? from what demographics? how much from loans? from whom / what?), and how much of that information is able to be audited (to what level?).
I've already looked on sites like census.gov (for example, http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk for some payroll data) and others, but I can't find anything that actually, in depth, details exactly what money is coming when and from where and how that money is being spent and when and where and by whom.
I find lots of politically charged / obviously biased sites claiming "we spend too much on X, Y, and Z" but I'm finding few dependable resources and actually 0 comprehensive resources (or aggregations at least).
Any help here?
In forming my opinion on...well basically anything, I always like to follow the money (best way to truly understand intentions, particularly in politics I feel)...but it's really hard to actually do so?
I'm strongly hoping someone will just throw a link that I missed that will have a comprehensive, dependable collection of that data, but who knows.
I'm actually surprised at how little attention actual real facts about spending get. You always hear all the talking points from every side about this spending and that spending and what we should do and how we should go about it but...I never actually get any information to be able to follow the money.
Isn't that like...really kind of super important? How can you run any organization, or even have a vote in anything for that organization, if you don't know actual, real facts about its money?
Again, I'm strongly hoping I just somehow missed all this and everyone just assumes this is known information because otherwise all these debates are even more ridiculous to me than they were previously.
I am very very curious to know the US Government's spending. By this I mean what it actually spends money on (how much is payroll, how much is SS / medicare, how much is infrastructure, how much is military, for all of the previous, where and when is the money going specifically), where it gets that money (how much from taxes? from what demographics? how much from loans? from whom / what?), and how much of that information is able to be audited (to what level?).
I've already looked on sites like census.gov (for example, http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk for some payroll data) and others, but I can't find anything that actually, in depth, details exactly what money is coming when and from where and how that money is being spent and when and where and by whom.
I find lots of politically charged / obviously biased sites claiming "we spend too much on X, Y, and Z" but I'm finding few dependable resources and actually 0 comprehensive resources (or aggregations at least).
Any help here?
In forming my opinion on...well basically anything, I always like to follow the money (best way to truly understand intentions, particularly in politics I feel)...but it's really hard to actually do so?
I'm strongly hoping someone will just throw a link that I missed that will have a comprehensive, dependable collection of that data, but who knows.
I'm actually surprised at how little attention actual real facts about spending get. You always hear all the talking points from every side about this spending and that spending and what we should do and how we should go about it but...I never actually get any information to be able to follow the money.
Isn't that like...really kind of super important? How can you run any organization, or even have a vote in anything for that organization, if you don't know actual, real facts about its money?
Again, I'm strongly hoping I just somehow missed all this and everyone just assumes this is known information because otherwise all these debates are even more ridiculous to me than they were previously.