Source: National Priorities Project via Bill Moyers
Where Your 2014 Taxes Went
April 21, 2015 4:00pm by Barry Ritholtz
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Just want to point out that there’s a lot of confusion and misdirection between “the budget” and “the discretionary budget less separately funded portions of the budget’: Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment etc, are for the most part separately funded through the FICA deduction on our paychecks. Although everyone seems to focus on those as the ‘wasteful drag on our budget’ that should be gutted, that really isn’t true. This is Obama’s proposed 2014 budget:
http://www.mylerdisability.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/social-security-disability-budget-596×300.jpg
and this is what we really need to discuss, the ‘Discretionary Budget’, which is not separately funded:
http://gawand.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/budget-pie.png
Notice in chart #2 how large our military budget is, even excluding TSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, and the VA? None of that is directly and separately funded. Also note that these items directly contribute to our national debt and the interest on it each year on a pro-rata basis. Our real defense budget is where we should be focusing for cuts, not social services, which for the most part are separately funded and do not impact the national debt or yearly interest.
Whoo-ha! 1.6% for “Energy” (is that like oil?) and “Environment” (thankfully, totally unrelated to “Health” or “Agriculture”) …
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/22/us/oklahoma-acknowledges-wastewater-from-oil-and-gas-wells-as-major-cause-of-quakes.html
Well, I guess the two can be intertwined. Still, seems like a low number. I mean, petro-interests in the USA just can’t catch a break, can they?
Over half of the budget is going to health care and the military. If we really want get our spending and revenue in balance that is where the cutting has to be. Both are bloated and inefficient. Our Military is bigger than the combine next biggest eight militaries. Why do we need such a behemoth? And we pay about two to three times more for our health care than other advance countries and are about 38th in overall quality according to WHO. When I hear politicians banging the fiscal conservative drum this is my B.S. gauge.
Veteran benefits should be included in military spending.
It’s all a military related costs.