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Defense spending is a lot, but it is actually one of the few things that the federal government is supposed to do and it's only 20% of the federal budget wherea
by dantheman 18y ago
Defense spending is a lot, but it is actually one of the few things that the federal government is supposed to do and it's only 20% of the federal budget whereas medicare and ss are at 60%
- tptacek 18y agoThat's not true. The OMB's own figures put Social Security at 20%, and Social Security is funded by a dedicated tax. Medicare is a much bigger problem. Budget comparisons are also subject to both chicanery (playing around with what you consider a defense expenditure) and bias (Social Security is the largest monolithic expenditure in the budget, just like MadMenSeries2.mp4s.zip is the biggest single file on my filesystem, but a small fraction of what I'm spending my disk on).
- dantheman 18y agoI will admit that the numbers can be juggled around quite a bit; but from most charts SS is 20% & medicare/medicate/etc are about 40% dod is about 20.. the fact that SS is funded by a dedicated tax doesn't have any relevance.