While military spending (not counting veterans' benefits) in 2015 was around 16% of the total US federal budget[1,2], it made up 53.71% of the discretionary spe

While military spending (not counting veterans' benefits) in 2015 was around 16% of the total US federal budget[1,2], it made up 53.71% of the discretionary spending budget, dwarfing the next closest category, "government", at 6.54%. From the BusinessInsider link below: "The military budget is by far the largest single cost displayed. It is almost six times larger than the 2015 education budget and it is more than 34 times the size of NASA's 2015 operating budget. In total, the costs of running the military amount to approximately 16% of the overall 2015 US budget." [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-defense-budget-is-massive-2015-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-defense-budget-is-mass... [2] https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...