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Obama's Budget: The White House Infographic Version

The government's plan for your tax dollars: See how much of Obama's 2012 budget will go to defense, debt interest, pollution control, and other stuff.


President Barack Obama has released his $3.729 trillion budget for 2012. The negotiating and haggling are already under way. Republicans say he didn't cut enough. Democrats will defend some of the programs Obama suggests cutting, like higher education, which will see an $89 billion spending drop over 10 years.

In an admirable move to make the daunting scale of the budget comprehensible, the White House has made and interactive infographic showing where the money goes in broad strokes. That big blue box for the military is growing by $671 billion to fund short term war costs in Afghanistan, if you were wondering.


There are a few tax increases in the budget, including allowing the Bush-era tax cuts expire for people making more than $200,000 year, as well as an increase on coal, oil and gas producers. That might go toward natural resources spending, appropriately the bright green box, representing 1.12 percent of the budget.

But the really scary color up there is deep purple. Net interest on our debt is 6.3 percent of the total budget and rising. That's what everyone wants to shrink. The White House estimates this budget would reduce the deficit by $1.1 trillion over ten years.


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