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The US invests more in education than it does in the military. In 2019 the US spent roughly 720 billion on the military. Public spending on elementary and sec
by harryh 6y ago
The US invests more in education than it does in the military.
In 2019 the US spent roughly 720 billion on the military.
Public spending on elementary and secondary (high schools) was about 740 billion. That doesn't count all spending on public colleges or any spending on private schools both of which are substantial.
- kasey_junk 6y agoThat’s a pretty unfair comparison given you are comparing Department of Defense federal discretionary dollars to _all estimated expenses at all levels of government_. Even if you just add the VA into the mix your numbers come out upside down. Add any segment of Homeland security and it gets really obvious fast.
- harryh 6y agoThe VA budget is ~200B/yr right? Maybe a bit more? Homeland Security is ~50B? If we include all of both of those (and I would contend that "all" isn't really appropriate if we're just talking about the "military") we're around a trillion or so on the military. Let's take the 740B on government spending on primary + secondary education and add the 175B or so spent by various levels of governments on college. That gets you to 915B. Is there 100B of private spending a year on education? I'm willing to bet there is. At the end of the day, the numbers are probably pretty close. My overall point is that there is this idea that US military spending dwarfs US education spending. However you do the math, this is clearly not the case.