{"id":62308,"date":"2014-04-14T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=62308"},"modified":"2014-04-14T15:54:43","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T20:54:43","slug":"where-did-your-2013-tax-dollars-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/04\/14\/where-did-your-2013-tax-dollars-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Did Your 2013 Tax Dollars Go?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each \u00a0year the <a href=\"http:\/\/nationalpriorities.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">National Priorities Project<\/a> releases a visual illustrating how our tax dollars are spent. \u00a0This is the one for 2013, sans medicare and social security taxes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/04\/15.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62309\" alt=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/04\/15-500x387.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"387\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/04\/15-500x387.jpg 500w, https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/04\/15.jpg 887w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a>At the end of Sociology 101, I like to ask my students: &#8220;What is the state for?&#8221; \u00a0This often takes them aback, as most of them have never considered the question before. \u00a0Is it for defense? \u00a0It is to maximize happiness or reduce misery? \u00a0Is it for maximizing GDP? \u00a0Protecting private property? \u00a0Do we want to use it to influence other countries? \u00a0How?<\/p>\n<p>There are many questions to ask and they are not\u00a0purely theoretical. \u00a0I like how the spending of our tax dollars helps make the conversation more concrete.<\/p>\n<p><em>Cross-posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/where-your-2013-tax-dollars-went-2014-4\" target=\"_blank\">Business Insider<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each \u00a0year the National Priorities Project releases a visual illustrating how our tax dollars are spent. \u00a0This is the one for 2013, sans medicare and social security taxes. At the end of Sociology 101, I like to ask my students: &#8220;What is the state for?&#8221; \u00a0This often takes them aback, as most of them have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":62311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,3920,85,304],"class_list":["post-62308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-economics","tag-nation-united-states","tag-politics","tag-the-state"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/04\/1a2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62308"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62308\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62459,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62308\/revisions\/62459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}