This is a great idea to put our spending in perspective, but one thing this sorely lacks is any way to incorporate "tax expenditures," because otherwise this as

This is a great idea to put our spending in perspective, but one thing this sorely lacks is any way to incorporate "tax expenditures," because otherwise this assumes everyone is homogeneous in terms of deductions, etc. For example, the subsidies given to oil companies and agriculture don't show up in the receipt because they're technically just deductions, but it would be wildly flawed to believe that they didn't exist. So what I would recommend is: 1. start at the top with what you would have paid based on your total income, before your deductions 2. show how much taxes you save for each deduction (maybe group them) 3. show the net 4. in the "programs and services", have an additional section called "Tax Expenditures" that shows your proportion of all tax deductions; suppose $200b were "saved" annually due to mortgage interest deduction, then it would show something like $2000 for mortgage interest. Same with oil and agricultural subsidies. Then we might get a better view of how our money's really being spent.