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This isn't an article about the US using budgeting software. It's swipe at war/military spending. It would have been nice to see an unbiased and full feature ar
by woodall 16y ago
This isn't an article about the US using budgeting software. It's swipe at war/military spending. It would have been nice to see an unbiased and full feature article on this.
- ry0ohki 16y agoI'm really not biased about this (I'm very apolitical), it's just clear when you lay it out like this that the main discretionary spending that needs to be cut to get a balanced budget is what they classify as "Security". Stealth bombers and other fancy things are nice but it's clear we can't actually afford them at this point.
- woodall 16y agoDon't get me wrong, as I am not trying to start a political argument, but the graphs on the page show the top level spending; leaves out lower level stuff. Defense spending doesn't mean buying stealth bombers. It can also mean foreign aide, food for needy afgans, providing soldiers with better equipment, paying families who had loved ones killed- on both sides- and a myriad of other things. The illustrations are pretty, but lack substance to form educated decisions; that goes for all categories. A break down of each section is what is needed. Can money in education be spent better? There is a lot more involved than just "cutting the defense budget".
- ry0ohki 16y agoI used the same high level categories used on the OMB budget for clarity, but you're right it probably would be interesting to see what details are below them, maybe when I have time later I'll add that detail. The main point was that a household can't continue with a deficit that large, and BudgetSimple's main goal is to help people create balanced household budgets
- woodall 16y agohttp://www.budgetsimple.com http://www.budgetsimple.com looks nice and it's completely free. That tells me that you probably have the best of intentions; plus the sales text on the front page seems genuine. I just feel that a more in depth analysis would make a better blog post; maybe even something to cite. Your post did get the idea across. The US needs to change the way they are spending their money or suffer the consequences in the near future.
- protomyth 16y agoThere is a pretty good case based on how many times money changes hands that the "Stealth Bomber" is a pretty good economic stimulant. Two things: First, The US pretty much hovers between 15 - 20% of GDP being brought in as revenue for the federal government. This is despite a lot of tax policy changes. Second, when Clinton did his defense cuts, one of the things cut was various supply buying from small contractors (mostly minority). We had two factories. One lost all its contracts (although it did stay open just a little longer to ship tents to Florida after a hurricane). The other lost half its workers. All the people who these people bought stuff from had hard times. Of course, welfare spending went up in the area. The plans to move into civilian supply never got off the ground. Welfare doesn't make as many hops through the economy as defense spending. Target spending cuts based on what happens to the money afterwards.
- Afton 16y ago> Welfare doesn't make as many hops through the economy as defense spending. What does that mean?
- protomyth 16y agoSorry, should have given references. The concept is called velocity of money http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money Although, I learned a slightly different definition than the wikipedia article. When I saw the studies, it was defined as "Number of different players a $ changed hands from before returning to the government". The study I saw said each $ spent on defense made 12 jumps, where each $ spent on welfare made 7 jumps.
- Afton 16y agothanks. Interesting idea.