I don’t know where 60% comes from since you didn’t explain it, but the percent is a subjective matter of what you choose to include or exclude, and I think you’re still including revenue sources that are not used to fund NASA, and being nonspecific about what spending you’re talking about. If you want to claim which number is “correct”, you need to explain it fully and carefully. Do note the difference between 50% and 60% is smaller than the percentage deficit, so we’re debating something smaller than the margin of error, and there’s no such thing as the “correct figure”. For example, 50% is the revenue portion of the budget that is comprised of individual income taxes, but if we look at the individual income tax revenue of $2.2T versus the total spending of $6.1T, then individual income taxes are actually only 36% of spending, so it can legitimately be argued that the average NASA share per citizen is closer to $26.50. Since that’s an average, it’s always incorrect relative to any given citizen; we haven’t even touched on income brackets and regressive/progressive taxes.

I agree that businesses pay too little, and yes taxes are a bit complicated. I’m not seeing intentional obscurity at this level, just that there are multiple different valid ways to frame NASA’s budget. The top comment was correct that the average per citizen cost to fund NASA in 2023 was slightly under $75. This is already very low, so that was the point from the top. Mine was simply that the actual amount we pay is even lower. Whether it’s 36% or 50% or 60% or even 85% doesn’t matter much, that ends up being about 1 or 2 cups of coffee either way.