2 ms·
I was hoping for a less partisan source. Even still, they don't place a figure of 51% of our income taxes on the occupation in Iraq. They don't measure it, but
by astine 18y ago
I was hoping for a less partisan source. Even still, they don't place a figure of 51% of our income taxes on the occupation in Iraq. They don't measure it, but it looks closer to %5. Considering that they're including the national debt as part of the military budge (a very dubious assumption,) I have trouble taking these figures seriously.
With regard to discretionary spending; there is a difference between including it as part of the US budget and portraying it as the US budget. I only cited is as an example; I make no claims about any particular survey.
- andreyf 18y agoI was hoping for a less partisan source. Sorry about that, was in a rush. Here's one for total spending: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget,_2008 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget,_2... Here's one for discretionary: http://www.cdi.org/issues/discret.html http://www.cdi.org/issues/discret.html Here's one in relation to GDP, as well as historical discretionary: http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php there is a difference between including it as part of the US budget and portraying it as the US budget Yes, absolutely. I think one would have to be quite confused about all this to mix up the two. One is what the president proposes and congress debates and votes on. The other is that, plus the laws that have already been passed in the past. The GDP figure is even farther complicated by uncertain estimates. This might be my bias coming in, but it's pretty clear that if you want to talk about what our elected officials are doing with our money, we have to talk about discretionary spending.