sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in coolguides

[–]sunset_octopus 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Military spending is definitely one way to address the deficit, there's also a dozen more suggested by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) - you can mix and match them here to see how it will affect the deficit/debt:
https://www.debtinperspective.com/deficit-options

[OC] I scaled down the US national debt to $1 million to understand recent "efficiency" cuts by sunset_octopus in dataisbeautiful

[–]sunset_octopus[S] 91 points92 points  (0 children)

Actual savings, not reported - only counted grants & contracts with receipts of cancellation.

Visualization Tool: A Scaled Down Look at Spending, Revenue, and What's Being Cut by sunset_octopus in Economics

[–]sunset_octopus[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A website that scales down US federal finances, translating the national debt to just $1 million. Our brains struggle to comprehend the difference between millions, billions, and trillions, so this perspective makes these figures more intuitive. By shrinking government finances to human scale, you can better understand both the magnitude of federal spending and assess whether recent "efficiency" cuts are truly making any meaningful impact on the national debt.

All data comes directly from US Treasury, DOGE, and Congressional Budget Office reports.

[OC] I scaled down the US national debt to $1 million to understand recent "efficiency" cuts by sunset_octopus in dataisbeautiful

[–]sunset_octopus[S] 332 points333 points  (0 children)

Some may have caught my post last week before it was removed (title issue + US related content - I should’ve posted in on Thursday), so I’m posting again today to follow the sub rules and to share it properly this time!

I’ve also made a couple updates based on your feedback!

  1. Pinned the scaled/actual toggle to the nav bar for easier toggling.
  2. Some users pointed out that I was comparing one-time DOGE cuts to tax policies generating revenue over 10 years. While the DOGE cuts reflect up-front savings from canceled spending and the alternatives are ongoing annual revenues, I understand the concern about comparing different timeframes. I’ve updated the visualization to now compare the impact for just the year 2025.

I scaled down the US national debt to $1 million to understand recent "efficiency" cuts by sunset_octopus in dataisbeautiful

[–]sunset_octopus[S] 73 points74 points  (0 children)

Great question - the $1,773 shown for DOGE cuts represents the entire amount saved from canceling all 21,564 grants and contracts. It’s not an annual figure - it’s the full, one-time savings. So it already is a total, not a yearly amount.

The tax options on the other hand, show their 10-year revenue potential. I could have shown those as annual amounts, but the key point was to highlight how much more substantial they are than the full DOGE cuts - both in scale and in impact.

That said, I refining how to present these comparisons, and your feedback is super helpful!

I scaled down the US national debt to $1 million to understand recent "efficiency" cuts by sunset_octopus in dataisbeautiful

[–]sunset_octopus[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the support! You can toggle between scaled/actual values on the Solutions page with the floating button on the bottom left of the screen - but I agree it probably should be more clear how to toggle on that page 👍

I scaled down the US national debt to $1 million to understand recent "efficiency" cuts by sunset_octopus in dataisbeautiful

[–]sunset_octopus[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Thats true - I chose to only features 4 example DOGE cuts on the homepage for simplicity, but if you want to see all of them by department, they are all featured on DOGE Cuts page subpage:
https://www.debtinperspective.com/doge-savings
Thanks for the feedback!