WASHINGTON, MAY 12, 2009--Would President Obama's budget
plan increase deficit spending much more than other modern
presidents? How much and how fast would the national debt go up
under Obama's budget? Is it true that amid all the government
spending, the defense budget would fall to what it was before the
9/11 attacks?
Taxpayers will find clear answers to
these questions about the new administration, along with other tax
and budget trends important to ordinary Americans, in the 2009
Federal Revenue and Spending Book of Charts. An updated
and expanded edition of the popular online resource from The
Heritage Foundation, it includes 37 easy-to-follow information
graphics.
New features include an interactive "flash" graphic that
dramatically shows that the more Americans earn, the higher their
portion of total federal taxes. Click on the image, for instance,
to see that the top 10 percent of earners pay 71 percent of the
taxes. The bottom 50 percent pay 3 percent.
Visitors to , the custom Web site
for the Book of Charts, may download, post or e-mail any of
the charts and graphs, as well as click on links to related
Heritage research and analysis. Visitors can quickly bookmark,
embed and share the data they want through Twitter, Facebook, RSS
feeds and other applications.
"More than ever, interested taxpayers
-- as well as journalists and members of Congress -- will find the
Book of Charts the go-to site for details on federal spending and
taxes, whether past, present or projected," says Nicola Moore,
assistant director of Heritage's Roe Institute for Economic Policy
Studies.
Also new are charts that show:
Heritage researchers, analysts and
graphic artists annually prepare, revise and update the spending
and revenue charts.
Some of this year's charts provide
answers to the questionsraised above:
Under the Obama plan, deficit spending would spurt to seven times what
it was under President Kennedy over 45 years ago, far
outpacing any other president since.
Publicly held national debt would more
than double in 10 years, to 82.4 percent of economic output (GDP),
by far the highest level since World War
II.
Defense spending under the Obama
budget, though, would fall from 4.7 percent of GDP to the pre-9/11 level
of 3 percent.
With the Obama administration and a new Congress in control of
the purse strings, the 2009 Federal Revenue and Spending Book of
Charts is ready to be mined by news reporters, commentators,
congressional staff, students of public policy, netroots
activists--anyone concerned or curious about the government's
worsening borrow-and-spend addiction.