It can be misleading looking at the budget this way. As to your last statement, they could cut the budget by a trillion, and still have 17% go to pensions, 23%

It can be misleading looking at the budget this way. As to your last statement, they could cut the budget by a trillion, and still have 17% go to pensions, 23% to healthcare, etc. In any case, doing a comparison in percentage terms to other areas of spending won't indicate whether they are overspending in any particular area. There could be huge wastes in some categories.