Week in Insights: Tax Allocation Knowledge Would Shape Priorities

Curated by Daniel Xu

Tax day is finally and mercifully behind us. But with many Americans crunching the numbers and cutting checks to the IRS, it seems like as good a time as any to look at some of the big-ticket items paid for with our 2023 tax dollars.

Each year, the National Priorities Project, a budget research organization, releases a report outlining where the average taxpayer’s tax liability was allocated. The report shows that this year, $1,748 of each’s person’s liability was put toward Pentagon contractors, $4,308 was allocated to Medicare and Medicaid, and $346 was spent on K-12 ...