What if our checks showed us where our money goes?

Ezra Klein points out that President Obama just signed a defense appropriation bill that spends approximately 7x more in one year than healthcare reform will cost.  It is published as a smaller number, however, because it is reported over a one year window, not ten like healthcare is.   Mike Koczal at Rortybomb follows that up by pointing out that people bemoan taxes when they see their paycheck but they also like defense spending: maybe federal taxes should be broken out to show what portion of our income goes to defense spending.  According to him, this is what a $60,000 salary paid biweekly would look like:

I like the idea, and I think it should be carried a few steps farther: why not show other spending programs that are also popular?  Without comparing the DoD to other popular programs, such as the Department of Education, it’s hard to put the huge outlay in perspective.  In effect, it makes it easier to feel how much we spend on defense, and maybe that realization would bend the curve of defense expenditures.