By John W. Schoen
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18098378/
If you have trouble balancing your checkbook, imagine trying to keep track of where $2.7 trillion goes every year. For the complete, gory details, you can check the latest estimates from the official budget on the Government Printing Office Website, where you¡¯ll find the government¡¯s finances sliced and diced ¡ª by agency, department, function and source ¡ª with historical data back to the 1940s and beyond.

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/hist.html
What you¡¯ll also find is a lot of big numbers. So to give you some sense of proportion, here¡¯s ¡ª roughly ¡ª how the federal budget compares to your budget and mine.

Let¡¯s assume you make $52,000 a year ¡ª or $1,000 a week ¡ª which is about the median household income in the U.S. Remember, that $1,000 a week is tax free. (Hey, you¡¯re the government.)

Here's where it went (we used 2006 figures from Table 3.2, "Outlays by Function and Subfunction"):

Last year, the three biggest federal budget items were Social Security, health care and defense spending ¡ª each of which ate up about $200 of your $1,000 weekly paycheck.

$219.40 of every $1,000 of your taxes went to pay for health care last year. On an annual salary of $52,000, that works out to $11,408.80 a year. The biggest chunk of that ($124.20 per thousand) went to pay for Medicare, which provides health coverage for people over 65. The rest ($95.20) went for Medicaid, which covers low-income families and individual, and state administered health coverage for children.

Some $206.60 of the weekly paycheck went to the Social Security fund ¡ª most of which is officially ¡°off budget.¡±

Next up is military spending. This includes a variety of defense costs, including salaries for the troops ($48.00); operating and maintenance costs ($76.70); ¡°procurement¡± ¡ª which means stuff you bought ($33.80) ¡ª and research, development, test and evaluation of all those things you bought ($25.80). Throw in $12 or so for things like ¡°atomic energy defense activities¡± and housing the troops, and you paid $196.50 to keep the world safe. (Or $10,218 for the year.)

Unfortunately, Uncle Sam ¡ª like many Americans ¡ª has been living beyond his means and spending more than he takes in. To make up the difference, the Treasury steps up by selling more debt ¡ª roughly the same as you or me using our credit cards. And like most credit card users, Uncle Sam isn¡¯t paying back that debt; he¡¯s just making the minimum monthly payment. So interest on the Treasury¡¯s credit card eats up $122.20 of Uncle Sam¡¯s $1,000 paycheck. That bill is cut by $36.80, thanks to the interest that the government pays itself for Treasury debt that it keeps ¡°off-budget.¡± Your net interest payment amounts to $85.30.

There¡¯s also a line in Uncle Sam¡¯s budget for $132.70 for ¡°income security¡± which includes things like unemployment insurance ($12.70); food and nutrition programs ($20.30), and housing assistance ($14.40). Also tucked into this line item is the cost of retirement for federal workers ($37.00).

Only $160 left for everything else:

After that the bills start to look pretty manageable ¡ª but then you¡¯ve only got about $160 left. You¡¯ve got to keep up in a fast-changing, competitive global world, so Uncle Sam spends $44.60 per thousand on education, including $19.00 on colleges and universities and $15.00 on elementary and secondary schools. Workers training programs cost $2.70 and social services related to education and training cost another $6.20.

You may have also heard your elected representatives talk about their commitment to keeping American in the forefront of science and technology. Last year, they¡¯ve devoted $3.40 to general science and basic research. Another $5.50 went to pay for the space program.

Like anyone else, Uncle Sam has to get around. Transportation costs ate up $26.50 per thousand in federal spending, including $17.00 for ground transportation; $6.80 for air travel and $2.50 for water transport. Imagine spending $17 bucks a year on your car and $2.50 for a boat.

The government also spent a few of your tax dollars on agriculture ($9.80) and the environment ($12.40). So call it $22.20 for landscaping and gardening.

While our military is working to keep the peace overseas, keeping the peace at home was a relative bargain. Total spending for the administration of justice came to $15.40, including federal law enforcement ($7.50), and maintaining the federal courts ($3.80) and federal prisons ($2.30).

Despite all the headlines about billions spent for helping victims of natural calamities like hurricane Katrina, federal disaster relief and insurance spending amounted to just $17.40 per thousand last year. Another $3.20 went to community and regional development.
And while some readers complain about seeing their tax dollars going to fund aid to other countries, it¡¯s not a big number. Last year, $6.30 went to pay for international development and humanitarian assistance. Housing ambassadors around the world and other expenses related to conducting international affairs set you back $3.20. Another $2.90 went to help beef up security outside our borders.

Finally, spending all this money and managing all these activities also cost money. So figure $6.90 for general government costs.

So there you have it. Not all of that money came from your incomes taxes, by the way. This year individuals will pay about $1.2 trillion of the $2.7 trillion federal spending, while corporations will pay $342 billion. The rest come form Social Security taxes ($873 billion); excises taxes ($57 billion) and other taxes and fees ($98 billion.)

For everything else, there¡¯s U.S. Treasury debt.