Where does the U.S. budget come from? Approximately $1.48 trillion of the $3.8 trillion federal budget comes from income taxes from individuals. What are income taxes? What is that money spent on? Who decides?
In the winter of 2016, CUP collaborated with Julia Joseph’s 11th grade U.S. History class at the International Community High School in the Bronx to learn about income taxes and investigate the funding of local, state, and federal governments.
To investigate, students participated in a scavenger hunt to find signs of tax funded programs in their neighborhood, surveyed community members about income taxes, and imagined ways government funding could be different. This booklet is a guide to what they discovered.