We talk a lot on this blog about taxes and government. You know that I think we had a better society when we were paying higher taxes. And you know that I find most of the right's arguments against taxation and government to be dishonest and cynical, and I spent a lot of time wondering how we can possibly return to a place where people maybe won't mind quite so much contributing their share to the common weal.

Part of the problem with taxes, I'd say a big part, is that people don't know where their money goes. They think it goes to foreign aid and poor people. Well...how about if people actually knew where their money went? Wouldn't be so hard.

As my regulars know, I also edit a quarterly journal, called Democracy, and in our new issue, just out, we have a great article by David Kendall and Ethan Porter proposing precisely this: an itemized individual taxpayer receipt from the IRS showing Taxpayer X, who earned A in taxable income and paid B in federal taxes, exactly where his money went, to the penny. Click here to read their article. Embedded within their article is a sample receipt to an average taxpayer to show what a receipt would look like, and a link for you to click on to see larger PDF. You can also visit the web site of Third Way, the group with whom we worked on this project (Kendall is a fellow there), to play with their tax receipt calculator.

The numbers show what you and I know but 97% of Americans don't. Their "Jane Q. Taxpayer" earned $50,000 and paid $6,883 in income and Social Security and Medicare taxes. Her bill breaks down like this (I'm not listing every category, just some interesting ones):

1. Defense $1,375.40

2. Social Security $1,334.78

3. Medicare $845.70

4. Low-income assistance $617.16

6. Interest payments $433.11

13. Environmental protection/natural resources $72.26

19. Foreign aid $42.81

30. Arts and culture $4.92

And so on. Is this not an excellent idea? It actually has congressional sponsors and could one day become law.

Mind you, I don't think this knowledge would lead inevitably to progressive political outcomes. The low-income assistance, the bulk of which goes toward four policy areas (earned-income tax credit, supplemental security income, food stamps and low-income housing supports), may be deemed by some taxpayers to be high. But at least we'll have a debate based on facts.

I think it's a fantastic idea, and I am very proud to publish it. And while I'm braggin' on Democracy, give yourself a treat and read, also from the new issue, the luminous review of the Mark Twain autobiography by the esteemed historian David Levering Lewis, the two-time Pulitizer winner for his biography of W.E.B. DuBois. Now that is what they call writing.

