Penny Polls on Tax Day in Seattle: Align Our Budget with Our Values
How would you spend our nation’s tax dollars for a year – a total of $1,242 trillion? On April 14 and 15, 450 people in different neighborhoods in Seattle were asked to make that decision. Each person participating was given 10 pennies, each penny representing $124 billion. Here is how Seattle voted in the five categories:
Pentagon – 6.1%
Humanitarian Aid –13.5%
Environment – 23.5%
Health Care – 25.1%
Education – 31.7%
These numbers are a stark contrast to the way that our income taxes are actually being spent in 2013. Instead of the military budget (past and present) dominating the budget at 47%, this clearly demonstrates that people in Seattle are calling out for re-prioritizing our national resources. Humanitarian aid received twice as much support as the Pentagon.
And there was a strong consensus that pouring the funding into the Pentagon could be better used if invested in education, health care and our environment.
What would happen to unemployment if we cut the Pentagon budget? We would create more jobs by spending according to the priorities of Seattleites. Education spending creates nearly three times as many jobs as military spending. Each person who dropped penny into the education jar voted to create more than 3 ½ million new jobs! If Congress followed the priorities of the people of Seattle, we would certainly be living in a very different world.