4 ms·
moot point when you consider that military spending takes up more than half of the budget
by loktarogar 8y ago
moot point when you consider that military spending takes up more than half of the budget
- jjoonathan 8y agoNope. It takes up about a third of the budget and is itself in large part a social program.
- chii 8y agoa "social" program for defense contractors. I m sure they are hurting, and need to make more money.
- jjoonathan 8y agoA social program for able bodied men and women willing to work for a living. It's how my father escaped poverty.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoA social program would be building schools, bridges, improving access to education, funding research for medicines to be put in public domain so it’s affordable. Adding a 12th aircraft carrier or developing an unnecessary fighter plane is not a social program.
- jjoonathan 8y agoNot everyone joins the military because the alternative is absolute shit, but it often is, and they often do. It is absolutely a social program in that sense, and if you cut it, your other social programs are going to have to take up the slack. You have to de-rate the "win" from cutting it accordingly.
- nhebb 8y agoIt's far lower than that. There's a fake pie chart floating around the internet showing Defense at 57% of the federal budget. For 2019, the real number was 12%. In previous years it was about 15%.
- kasey_junk 8y agoIt depends on how you categorize things. The 50% numbers come from discretionary budgets & are accurate. But ‘most’ federal spending is not discretionary. It’s old people care.
- nhebb 8y agoDiscretionary spending is about 1/3 of the budget, and, yeah, defense is half of that, but when the GP wrote that "military spending takes up more than half of the budget" it paints a misleading picture.
- burfog 8y agoThere really isn't any non-discretionary spending. The closest we have is payments specified in international treaties, and even that can simply not be paid. All the rest is just a couple congressional votes and a presidential signature away from being eliminated.
- nhebb 8y agoMedicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are considered mandatory spending because politicians tend to like being reelected.
- kasey_junk 8y agoThat and it doesn’t go through the standard appropriations process.
- jayess 8y ago~16%: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/ https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...