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Does this account for the changes in how spending is reported? Is all defense spending under defense? or is there a lot hidden under education and health? I h

by tnuc 14y ago

Does this account for the changes in how spending is reported? Is all defense spending under defense? or is there a lot hidden under education and health? I have played with too many budgets to accept things like this at face value.

adventureful 14y ago
No, a lot of defense spending is not hidden under health. $850x billion is spent on the military. That has doubled since the mid 1990s, and so has everything else roughly. Now, if you want to consider whether the CIA is an arm of the military, that's a fair issue. If you want to look into the drug trade and how much money the US Government makes from that, that's another fair issue. Also, should the NSA be considered a military wing, because it has a $80 billion budget all by itself.... If you count those types of police state entities, then the military spending is another 5% of the budget.
cpeterso 14y ago
Good question. Does the "defense spending" category include the trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? George W. Bush's administration conveniently swept the wars' costs into a "supplemental" budget separate from the DoD budget.
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  "The figures in the graph include veterans' benefits as well as funding for current operations."
  - gruseom 14y ago
    That suggests that the off-budget wars were not included. Edit: never mind. I was referring to what they call the "unfunded" wars under GWB but the graph obviously doesn't include those years.
- nnnnnnnn 14y ago
  No, the graph clearly does not include the supplementary spending. I ran the numbers for this a while back, and the supplementary extra-budget DoD spending in the Bush years raised the DoD expenses from 22% to nearly 40% in some cases. Military expenditures are much higher than 22%, even in 2011. These budget numbers hide much military spending in other budgetary components -- for example, veteran's benefits or military scholarships will fit into another category (Medicare, everything else, etc). Statistics that put military spending at a quarter of our budget never include these costs. A big part of this "change" comes from a budgeting game which hides military costs in other budgets. Contrary to claims in the article, VA benefits and medical claims did exist as an expense 50 years ago -- but they were directly part of the Defense budget at that time.
- streptomycin 14y ago
  None of the graphs are from the Bush era, so your question is irrelevant.
  - cpeterso 14y ago
    None of the graphs are from the Bush era, but the Iraq war was still active in 2011. I was asking whether the cost of the war's operation omitted from this graph's "Defense spending".
    - streptomycin 14y ago
      I thought, by how you phrased your question, you knew that Obama had reversed Bush's funny accounting policy. If not, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/politics/20budget.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/politics/20budget.html Either way, the wars are very cheap these days.

by tnuc 14y ago

adventureful 14y ago

No, a lot of defense spending is not hidden under health. $850x billion is spent on the military. That has doubled since the mid 1990s, and so has everything else roughly. Now, if you want to consider whether the CIA is an arm of the military, that's a fair issue. If you want to look into the drug trade and how much money the US Government makes from that, that's another fair issue. Also, should the NSA be considered a military wing, because it has a $80 billion budget all by itself.... If you count those types of police state entities, then the military spending is another 5% of the budget.

cpeterso 14y ago

Good question. Does the "defense spending" category include the trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? George W. Bush's administration conveniently swept the wars' costs into a "supplemental" budget separate from the DoD budget.

waterlesscloud 14y ago
"The figures in the graph include veterans' benefits as well as funding for current operations."
- gruseom 14y ago
  That suggests that the off-budget wars were not included. Edit: never mind. I was referring to what they call the "unfunded" wars under GWB but the graph obviously doesn't include those years.
nnnnnnnn 14y ago
No, the graph clearly does not include the supplementary spending. I ran the numbers for this a while back, and the supplementary extra-budget DoD spending in the Bush years raised the DoD expenses from 22% to nearly 40% in some cases. Military expenditures are much higher than 22%, even in 2011. These budget numbers hide much military spending in other budgetary components -- for example, veteran's benefits or military scholarships will fit into another category (Medicare, everything else, etc). Statistics that put military spending at a quarter of our budget never include these costs. A big part of this "change" comes from a budgeting game which hides military costs in other budgets. Contrary to claims in the article, VA benefits and medical claims did exist as an expense 50 years ago -- but they were directly part of the Defense budget at that time.
streptomycin 14y ago
None of the graphs are from the Bush era, so your question is irrelevant.
- cpeterso 14y ago
  None of the graphs are from the Bush era, but the Iraq war was still active in 2011. I was asking whether the cost of the war's operation omitted from this graph's "Defense spending".
  - streptomycin 14y ago
    I thought, by how you phrased your question, you knew that Obama had reversed Bush's funny accounting policy. If not, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/politics/20budget.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/us/politics/20budget.html Either way, the wars are very cheap these days.