Operations & support
Explore people, fuel, maintenance and services in the account buttons below.
RESIDUAL AFTERMATHPUBLIC MONEY / ACCOUNTABILITY
FOLLOW THE MONEY / COUNT THE CONSEQUENCES
Where is my
money going?!
Enter a tax amount. See federal spending in proportion. Then follow the purchases—and the costs left behind.
An educational comparison using FY2025 spending shares, not a trace of your individual tax payment.
Build my illustrative receipt ↓01 / ACTUAL SPENDING · FY2025 · ALL FEDERAL OUTLAYS
Your amount.
The spending breakdown.
Try the $10,000 example or enter your annual federal income-tax amount. The result updates as you type. This example is not a national average.
01 / CHOOSE AN AMOUNT
Use tax liability, not your refund or paycheck withholding. Exclude state, local and payroll taxes. This is not a tax estimator; the amount stays in this page and is not saved or sent.
Try an example:
Select any receipt line to see what the category means. Bar length represents its share of all federal outlays.
Next: what does defense funding buy? ↓Read this as scale, not a personal receipt. Taxes and borrowing finance the budget. Defense discretionary is only one part of military-related spending. Source: CBO, February 2026, FY2025 actual outlays ↗
What does this formula assume?
We assume each spending category has the same revenue/deficit financing mix. Actual funding rules vary, especially for trust funds. A federal income-tax input does not identify a personal contribution to payroll-funded programs.
Illustrative category amount = entered tax × category outlays ÷ total outlays
More explicitly, let T = your chosen amount, R = federal revenues, O = total outlays, and C = category outlays. Under proportional financing:
Revenue-financed category estimate = C × R/O
Your illustrative fraction of revenue = T/R
Combined: (T/R) × (C × R/O) = T × C/O
Your illustrative fraction of revenue = T/R
Combined: (T/R) × (C × R/O) = T × C/O
The revenue terms cancel. Dividing your amount by revenue and multiplying by the entire spending category would also allocate deficit-financed spending to you. We avoid that. Neither approach can recover your actual dollar trail.
How do revenues and borrowing fit together?
THE BUDGET ALSO USES DEFICIT FINANCING
For every $100 of FY2025 outlays
CBO’s FY2025 actual totals: $5,235bn revenues, $7,010bn outlays, $1,775bn deficit. Revenue includes more than individual income tax. Deficit is the budget financing gap, not gross Treasury borrowing or a personal future tax bill.
This is a proportional illustration, not a receipt from Treasury. Revenues and borrowing finance a shared budget, with dedicated funding rules for some programs. The calculation does not trace your dollars or imply that all spending was tax-funded. It assumes proportional financing across categories; it does not model dedicated tax funding or the economic burden of taxes.
Source figures, category definitions & rounding
Source: CBO, February 2026, Table 3-1, FY2025 actual outlays. In billions: mandatory programs 4,156; defense discretionary 893; nondefense discretionary 990; net interest 970; total 7,010. A 1bn source-rounding residual is shown separately. Each illustrative amount = your input × category ÷ 7,010. Table 1-1 supplies the revenue, outlay and deficit totals. Displayed amounts use largest-remainder rounding: floor each allocation to cents, then distribute the remaining cents to the largest fractional remainders. Ties follow category order. This changes display rounding, not the underlying shares.
Mandatory programs include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other legally determined payments. Defense discretionary is not the entire cost of the military; some defense activity is mandatory. Nondefense discretionary includes many agencies and services. The detailed FY2026 DoD request below uses a different year, scope and funding stage. We do not multiply these two datasets into an apparent personal aircraft or weapons bill.
An “average American tax payment” needs a defined population, tax type and year. A mean per tax return is not a median per person, and joint returns can represent two people. This version uses your chosen example instead of claiming a typical amount.
Explore the proposed defense budgetFY2026 request—not actual spending
02 / PROPOSED FUNDING · FY2026 · DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ONLY
Out of every $100 in the DoD request,
where does it go?
About $58 keeps people and systems operating, $40 develops and buys equipment, and $2 supports infrastructure.
A different dataset starts here. This is a historical FY2026 DoD request, not actual spending. Its $100 breakdown is separate from your tax example above; the two calculations are not combined.
Request totals, source, calculation & rounding
Denominator: DoD’s $961 billion FY2026 request, as analyzed by CBO in April 2026. It incorporates a $113 billion reconciliation-funding placeholder. This is a historical request snapshot: CBO notes that FY2027 request details were released after its analysis was completed. This is a plan, not actual outlays, the complete enacted budget, all national-security spending, or your personal taxes.
CBO: DoD’s 2026 Budget Request and Plan for Funding Provided by the 2025 Reconciliation Act, April 2026. Operation and support: $558bn; acquisition: $384bn. Divide each by $961bn and multiply by 100, then round to whole dollars. The remainder is approximately $19bn, or $2 per $100, representing infrastructure and source rounding; it is derived, not a separately quoted exact infrastructure total. Source figures are in 2026 dollars.
The reconciliation placeholder is already within $961bn; do not add it again. Veterans’ Affairs, DOE nuclear activities and other agencies are outside this denominator. The graphic is a broad grouping; the account buttons below are a different, more detailed classification and must not be added to these shares.
From approval to paymentFollow the stages of government spending
PURCHASES / WHAT MILITARY FUNDING PAYS FOR
Here’s where it goes.
Select a destination. See what it buys, then follow the environmental and economic consequences below. Equal-sized boxes are navigation—not budget shares.
Your public dollars → Department of Defense funding
Selected examples by appropriation category
Selected examples by appropriation category
Category framework: CBO, November 2024 analysis of the FY2025 plan. This is a structural explainer, not a current budget table. Veterans’ care (VA), some nuclear activities (DOE), military assistance and debt interest require additional accounts and definitions; they are not all included in this DoD branch.
How does my tax money become a payment?
From the public budget to an actual payment, there are several steps:
Federal spending is financed through revenues and borrowing. This diagram follows one part of spending; it does not imply all revenue goes to the military.
Revenue + borrowingTaxes, other receipts and debt financing
Budget authorityCongress provides legal funding authority, commonly through appropriations
ObligationsLegally binding commitments, such as contracts
OutlaysPayments, sometimes spread across several years
A proposal is not enacted funding. Authorization is not the same as an appropriation; an awarded contract is not necessarily cash already paid. CBO budget terms ↗
CONSEQUENCES / THE LATER BILL
The bill that
comes later.
A budget payment records a transaction. It does not capture every consequence of damaged water systems, contaminated land or lost habitat.
ILLUSTRATIVE PATHWAYS · NO PERSONAL COST ESTIMATECOSTS TO INVESTIGATE
What might be missing
from the invoice?
Open an item. Each describes a possible cost pathway, not a measured loss at every conflict site.
01 Water treatment & repair Not estimated
Evidence status: conditional mechanism. Damage or pollution may increase treatment, replacement-supply and repair needs. A case estimate needs water measurements, service records, repair scope and unit costs.
Who may bear costs? Utilities, households and public agencies. Suppliers and repair workers may receive payments; those revenues do not establish a net social gain.
Explore the water evidence journey ↗02 Lost livelihoods Not estimated
Evidence status: conditional mechanism. Reduced access, damaged land or affected fisheries can interrupt work. Estimating a loss requires a baseline, a time period and evidence separating environmental effects from other conflict disruptions.
Who may bear costs? Workers, farms, fishing businesses and households. Revenue loss, lost profit and lost wages can overlap and should not simply be added.
03 Monitoring & restoration Not estimated
Evidence status: investigation and recovery needs. Sampling, laboratory analysis and restoration can require resources. A budget should specify the area, sampling design, work plan and follow-up period.
Who may receive payments? Laboratories, technicians and restoration teams. Success requires measured improvements, not only a paid invoice.
See evidence gaps in the Gaza screening tool ↗04 Long-term care & maintenance Not estimated
Evidence status: case dependent. Some projects require repeated testing, treatment-system upkeep or habitat management. Duration and cost cannot be assumed without a case-specific plan.
A dated assessment must establish who is responsible, what will be maintained and how future costs are valued.
Total environmental lossNot calculated
These items are not added to your illustrative receipt. Unknown is not zero. A full assessment must avoid overlap and account for recovery benefits as well as costs.
Compare costs, revenues & recovery benefits ↓How environmental costs are countedDamage, recovery and economic losses
CONSEQUENCES / THE ECONOMIC PATHWAYS
One damaged system.
Several different ledgers.
These are conditional mechanisms to investigate, not measured effects in every conflict. An environmental or economic attribution needs a documented source, exposure or service disruption, comparison conditions, and a defined time period.
WHO MAY BEAR COSTS?
Costs & lost value
WHO MAY RECEIVE PAYMENTS?
Revenue & wages
WHAT COULD CREATE A BENEFIT?
Recovery & avoided harm
Revenue is not profit. Spending is not the same as a net social gain.
A supplier’s revenue pays for labor, materials and other costs; profit is what remains. A repair payment is an expense for the payer and revenue for the recipient. Adding both as separate societal losses can double-count the same transaction.
Repair work can restore valuable services. Its benefits must be compared with costs and a stated baseline: improvement over a damaged condition does not mean destruction created a benefit over the no-damage alternative.
How to value a loss without counting it twice
- Asset damage: estimate affected physical assets using a stated valuation method.
- Flow losses: measure lost production or service over a defined period. Avoid treating both lost sales and lost profit as additive estimates of the same loss.
- Recovery needs: estimate resources for restoration and rebuilding. These may overlap with damage valuations and include better standards or additional services.
- Ecosystem and health effects: assess nonmarket impacts separately; do not assume absence of a price means zero value.
- Distribution and opportunity cost: identify the payer, recipient, affected community and resources diverted from other uses. Security benefits and alternative policies also require assessment in any full cost-benefit analysis.
This page does not calculate a net economic balance or monetize deaths, biodiversity loss or cultural harm.
Mechanism reference: EPA on nutrient pollution and economic effects documents drinking-water treatment costs and losses in tourism, fisheries and property value. Those U.S. examples support mechanisms; their dollar values are not transferred to war zones. Soil and procurement-to-recovery branches are illustrative analytical prompts, not case estimates.
Compare three kinds of estimateKeep their scopes and assumptions separate
CASE EXAMPLE / GAZA
Three estimates.
Three different questions.
EU–UN–World Bank Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment, released 20 April 2026, following 24 months of conflict. These are cross-sector estimates, not an environmental-only bill or a calculation of U.S. taxpayer responsibility.
Physical infrastructure damage
What physical assets were damaged?
Economic & social losses
What economic and social flows were lost?
Recovery & reconstruction needs
What resources are estimated to be needed over the next decade?
Do not add all three. Recovery needs can include rebuilding damaged assets and restoring services already reflected in the other categories. They are estimates of need, not confirmed funding, contracts, profit or payments.
Read the UN assessment summary and report ↗Ask who pays.
Ask who recovers.
A useful spending story needs an account, a fiscal year, a funding stage and a recipient. A useful damage story needs a baseline, a time period and evidence connecting the impact to the conflict.
Sources & editorial scope
Reading layout revised 26 October 2026; source figures and periods remain as labeled. This page offers a U.S. funding framework and conditional environmental-economics pathways, rather than a comprehensive defense budget, transaction audit or causal model.
KEEP FOLLOWING THE MONEY
Why is gas so damn expensive?!
Explore fuel-price drivers and calculate what a price change costs you.
Explain my gas bill ↗