67% of the budget goes to defense? That's just sick!

[bif]

And I saw someone post that if we cut the defense budget, it will lead to layoffs (this was in a Yahoo forum). Isn't this what eventually brought down the Soviets?

[FBaggins]

1. Yeah... that WOULD be "sick"... if it were true.

Thank goodness it isn't.

[robcon]

2. Defense is the second largest category of spending, accounts for 19% of the $3.55 trillion budget

The President's budget request for 2010 totals $3.55 trillion. Percentages in parentheses indicate percentage change compared to 2009. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures

Mandatory spending: $2.173 trillion (+14.9%)
$695 billion (+4.9%) – Social Security
$571 billion (+58.6%) – Welfare, unemployment, other
$453 billion (+6.6%) – Medicare
$290 billion (+12.0%) – Medicaid
$164 billion (+18.0%) – Interest on National Debt

US receipt and expenditure estimates for fiscal year 2010.

Discretionary spending: $1.378 trillion (+13.8%)
$663.7 billion (+12.7%) – Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations)
$78.7 billion (−1.7%) – Department of Health and Human Services
$72.5 billion (+2.8%) – Department of Transportation
$52.5 billion (+10.3%) – Department of Veterans Affairs
$51.7 billion (+40.9%) – Department of State and Other International Programs
$47.5 billion (+18.5%) – Department of Housing and Urban Development
$46.7 billion (+12.8%) – Department of Education
$42.7 billion (+1.2%) – Department of Homeland Security
$26.3 billion (−0.4%) – Department of Energy
$26.0 billion (+8.8%) – Department of Agriculture
$23.9 billion (−6.3%) – Department of Justice
$18.7 billion (+5.1%) – National Aeronautics and Space Administration
$13.8 billion (+48.4%) – Department of Commerce
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of Labor
$13.3 billion (+4.7%) – Department of the Treasury
$12.0 billion (+6.2%) – Department of the Interior
$10.5 billion (+34.6%) – Environmental Protection Agency
$9.7 billion (+10.2%) – Social Security Administration
$7.0 billion (+1.4%) – National Science Foundation
$5.1 billion (−3.8%) – Corps of Engineers
$5.0 billion (+100%-NA) – National Infrastructure Bank
$1.1 billion (+22.2%) – Corporation for National and Community Service
$0.7 billion (0.0%) – Small Business Administration
$0.6 billion (−14.3%) – General Services Administration
$0 billion (−100%-NA) – Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)
$0 billion (−100%-NA) – Financial stabilization efforts
$11 billion (+275%-NA) – Potential disaster costs
$19.8 billion (+3.7%) – Other Agencies
$105 billion – Other

[Angry Dragon]

6. Nice try putting Social Security in there

SS does not add to budget or deficit


:thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

[ChrisBorg]

8. Then why were the checks in danger of not going out?

[Angry Dragon]

21. My understanding is SS admin. costs come out of the fund

They are 1%
Could be that they are paid by fed and then reimbursed

Ask Obama

[Recursion]

23. Yes, Treasury sends the money to the Trust Fund

The money notionally belongs to the Fund; the Treasury actually holds all government monies. It's not like the Trust Fund set up an account with Bank of America or something.

[Kingofalldems]

31. Oops.

[Recursion]

19. Yes and no. Treasury still signs the checks.

If I set aside part of my checking account to pay rent, that's good from an administrative standpoint, but it doesn't change the fact that money is still coming out of the account when I pay rent.

[Angry Dragon]

24. By law SS can not add to deficit

But in reality your trust fund is paying your rent ........ different monies

[Recursion]

26. Again, yes and no: it can force additional borrowing which is not called "deficit"

But the additional borrowing happens, and does somewhat increase the debt (though not by the full face amount, since it's mostly replacing redeemed bonds one for one). And the additional supply does increase bond yields (particularly since the Trust Fund is no longer actively purchasing bonds at anything like the rate it was in the 90s).

[RKP5637]

3. Here's a chart that gives a pretty good split of the budget. 67% is way off.

[Recursion]

22. As a rule of thumb defense roughly equals SS

Though since it doesn't have a dedicated revenue stream it's at least administratively (and probably politically) easier to cut.

[AngryAmish]

4. Defense against bees.

[Brickbat]

5. Defense against dogs with bees in their mouths, and when they bark they shoot bees at you.

[AngryAmish]

7. bees

[laruemtt]

9. military madness

is killing the country.

"With respect to decline, Toynbee wrote: “Militarism ... has been by far the commonest cause of the breakdowns of civilizations during the last four or five millennia ... Militarism breaks a civilization down by causing the local states into which the society is articulated to collide with one another in destructive fratricidal conflicts.” (A Study of History, page 190)"

http://worldhistorysite.com/internaldynamic.html

[Yavin4]

10. Who Is Coming After Us? What Nation Is Threatening Us?

Who?

[laruemtt]

11. we're destroying ourselves

better than any foreign body could.

[L0oniX]

12. It brought down Rome too.

[Recursion]

35. Eh. "Why did Rome fall?" is always a tricky argument

Though lately it's been replaced with "Did Rome fall?" In any case, you have to account for the fact that all the things usually cited (military spending, welfare spending, barbarians, insufficient taxes, inequality, Christianity -- the reasons given usually say more about the historian's society than Rome) existed even more strongly in the eastern empire, which survived for another millenium after Rome fell.

[WI_DEM]

13. 67% for m,ilitary is sick and yet we are nickel and diming about social security and Medicare.

eom.

[uppityperson]

17. 67% for military is also not true. Please look at info and chart upthread

[unhappycamper]

14. Yea, but look at all those shiny toys we bought:

$584 million and it's in the shop for hull cracks.





$355 million and they've been grounded since May.





$5 ~ 7 billion and the coating flakes off.





$243 million and still not ready for prime time.





$1.4 billion and the engines still don't work properly.





$5.9 billion and there're still trying to build sell them.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

15. Geez-us....Why in the hell do we need this many troops?

United States of America<169> 1,580,255 (Active troops)

[Recursion]

25. That's 0.4% of our population

I'm not sure how that compares internationally; most of our costs aren't personnel anyways.

[Cleita]

16. Defense? What are we defending ourselves from?

What we are doing is funding our military aggression. We are no different than Rome, France under Napoleon and the British Empire. While the sun never set in Queen Victoria's British Empire, due to their military invasions, Dickens was writing about the dire poverty and injustices heaped on the lower classes on account of the industrial revolution. It looks like we are there.

[Arugula Latte]

18. They should rename it the Department of Offense

[Recursion]

20. 67% of discretionary spending

13% of spending overall. Which gives you some idea of how much mandatory spending we have, and why it's going to be hard to come up with a balanced budget that doesn't affect that in some way.

[bif]

27. Thanks. I knew I saw that figure somewhere.

[SlimJimmy]

28. Why do you even try? People will believe what they want (or what they are told) despite

the facts presented. It seems like an exercise in futility around here sometimes.

[Matariki]

29. It's NOT going to Defense

We should be VERY clear about where this money is really going - not for the defense of the Nation, but rather to the coffers of corporations that profit from endless war or the threat of war. It's been one giant raid on the treasury by these vultures and now they're eyeing all that's left - our Social Security funds.

[Gregorian]

32. Yes. It took even me a long time before realizing the specifics of that.

And it's extremely important that Americans get this.

What this means is that war is the smokescreen that obscures how everyone loses at least one hour of every day. That's the bottom line. 8 hours. 25% tax. Half of that to military. That is one hour of every day of your life. Gone. Shifted to those who use fear to take your money. It's robbery.

[many a good man]

30. Defense spending has been spread throughout the budget

It's not solely allocated to the DoD. Security spending for military personnel and programs are hidden in the budgets of other departments. I'm told this brings the total to about 50% of all spending. Sorry, but I don't have any links handy.

[chill_wind]

33. WRL Federal Pie Chart

http://www.warresisters.org/federalpiechartnumbers

FY2012 Pie Chart
How These Figures Were Determined

"Current military" includes Dept. of Defense ($707 billion) and the military portion from other departments as noted in current military box above ($162 billion). "Past military" represents veterans' benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.* For further explanation, please go to www.warresisters.org.

These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the Analytical Perspectives book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2012. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds -- such as Social Security -- that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don't pay) by April 18, 2011, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining Trust and Federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion
smaller.

*Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated.


THE GOVERNMENT'S DECEPTION

This pie chart below is the government view of the budget. This is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the large graph.

Chart: The Goverment's Deception
Source: 1040 Forms and Instructions 2010, Federal Outlays for FY 2009

Key Findings (in terms of costs of the wars )

Pentagon accounting for the wars has been deeply inadequate

It is unknown what was actually spent, as opposed to what was appropriated, on operations

The best accounting of Pentagon appropriations is by the Congressional Research Service which shows $1,208 billion in current dollars appropriated from FY2001-FY2011

Using the Pentagon's deflators, war appropriations total $1,313 billion in 2011 constant dollars

The wars appear to have increased the Pentagon "base" budget appropriations, with totals as high as the difference between what was planned before 9/11 and what was appropriated — an additional $667 billion in Pentagon deflated constant 2011 dollars

http://costsofwar.org/article/pentagon-budget

[Recursion]

34. Our nuclear arsenal is under the Department of Energy's budget, oddly enough (nt)