Corporate taxes as a percentage of all taxes have gone down since 1968, while Social Security taxes, falling heavily on individuals, have risen dramatically. Excise taxes are taxes already included in the price of alcohol, tobacco, telephone service, gasoline, certain chemicals and products, and user fees for highways and airports. Other taxes include estate and gift taxes, custom duties and fees, deposits of earnings from the Federal reserve and other miscellaneous receipts. For instance, homeowner mortgage interest is not taxed but if it were would bring in tens of billions of dollars each year. This loss of revenue benefits one group of people directly and has ripple effects on the home-building and real estate industries but the resources are then not available to be spent on programs benefiting other sectors of the economy and population.
Corporate subsidies are often in the form of tax expenditures.
A large part of the budget is spent on fixed costs such as Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the federal debt. These are mandatory expenses. The rest of the budget is known as discretionary spending, which means Congress and the president decide each year how much to spend in each category. Military spending still receives close to half of discretionary spending despite the end of the Cold War. A recognition that all people are dependent on community and the Earth's physically limited resources.