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"How Much Aid to Israel?" is a project of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation,
a national coalition of more than 325 organizations working to change
U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights,
international law, and equality.
How Did We Get These Numbers?
In
August 2007, the United States and Israel signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) outlining a ten-year (FY2009-2018) U.S. military
aid package to Israel totaling $30 billion. We got the text of the MOU
by submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the
State Department, which you can view by clicking here.
To estimate each state's contribution to this $30 billion expenditure, we took figures from the Internal Revenue Service Tax Stats, Gross Collections, by Type of Tax and State for FY2008.
This data enabled us to figure out the percentage of each state's
contribution to federal taxes collected. State figures do not add up
to $30 billion exactly because the IRS collects a small percentage of
overall taxes from international sources and U.S. armed services
personnel stationed overseas.
To estimate the contribution of
each Congressional district, county, and city to this $30 billion
expenditure, we took figures from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2006-2008 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates.
Multiplying total population by estimated per capita income in the past
12 months (in 2008 inflation-adjusted dollars) enabled us to figure out
the percentage of each geographical unit's contribution to its state's
contribution of federal taxes collected.
To estimate the
budgetary trade-offs, we took figures from the budget justifications of
the federal government agencies that administer these federal
government programs. Dividing the cost of the program by the number of
people served by it, we figured out how much each of these programs
cost per person. We then took this per person program cost and divided
it by a geographical unit's contribution to the $30 billion dollars in
military aid to Israel to figure out how many people could have been
served instead by this program with this money.
To estimate the average tax-payer bill in 2010 of $19.19 for military aid to Israel, we took President Obama's FY2011 budget request of $3 billion in military aid to Israel and divided it by the number of individual tax filings (156,297,000) reported by the IRS in its 2008 End of Year End Report.
Learn More about the Budgetary Trade-Off Programs
Affordable housing grants. In its FY2010 budget justification,
the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) planned to
provide 2,165,700 low-income households with Section 8 tenant-based
rental vouchers at a total cost of $17.836 billion, or $8,235.67 per
household.
HUD's program description: "Initiated in the
mid-1970s, rental housing vouchers have since emerged as the nation’s
largest low-income housing assistance program. They now serve over 2
million households with extremely low incomes (about 40 percent of
families who receive vouchers now have incomes below half of the
poverty line), paying the difference between 30 percent of a
household’s income and the rent of a qualifying, moderately priced
house or apartment."
Green jobs training. In its FY2010 budget justification,
the Department of Labor (DOL) requested $50 million for its Green Jobs
Innovation Fund to train 8,300 workers for a cost of $6,204.10 per
worker.
DOL's program description: "The Green Jobs Innovation
Fund, authorized as Pilot and Demonstration Projects under Section 171
of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) of 1998, supports competitive
grant opportunities to help workers receive job training in green
industry sectors and occupations and access green career pathways."
Early reading education. In its FY2010 budget justification,
the Department of Education (DOE) estimated that in FY2009 it spent
$112,549,000 for its Early Reading Fund to serve 33,278 children for a
cost of $3,382.08 per student.
DOE's program description: "The
Early Reading First program supports local efforts to enhance the early
language, literacy, and pre-reading development of preschool-aged
children, particularly those from low-income families, through
instruction, materials, and professional development based on
scientific reading research."
Primary health care. In its FY2010 budget justification,
the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported that it
spent $1,988,039,000 in FY2007 to provide 16.1 million patients with
primary health care through its Health Centers program for a cost of
$123.48 per patient.
HHS's program description: "For more than
40 years, Health Centers have delivered comprehensive, high-quality,
cost-effective primary healthcare to patients regardless of their
ability to pay. During that time Health Centers have become the
essential primary care provider for America’s most vulnerable
populations: people living in poverty, uninsured, and homeless;
minorities; migrant and seasonal farmworkers; public housing residents;
geographically isolated; and people with limited English proficiency."
Can't Find Your County or City? Errors in the Map? If
you can't find your county or city on the map, the most likely reason
is that it is populated by less than 20,000 people. Unfortunately, the
Census Bureau's American Community Survey only contains data for
geographical units of 20,000 or more, which is why we couldn't include
counties or cities with smaller populations in our map.
If you find an error in the map, please let us know about it by clicking here.
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