http://www.deviantart.com/view/9410862/
This is a great picture which helps put the funding for all the different things in the federal budget in to perspective.
The big picture
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Klast Brell
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Lord Holervabeese
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Torakus
- Ignore me, I am drunk again
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I am not overly concerned.
UNESCO studies which compared social spending to military spending around the world to percentage of GDP paints a slightly different picture. In fact it indicates that as a % of GDP the U.S. spends more 5.8% on health, 4.8% on education, than the 3.4% toward military. The period 2003-04 there was a spike in military expenditure, primarily due to Bush's War (24% overall increase in real dollars). Other than that spike current military expenditure is following a very old trend, that most of the world shares. Even those nations that spend less by percentage on military do not spend more by percentage on social issues. Don't ask me how that works, I am just regurgitating what the UNESCO study reveals.
Aid to foriegn militaries is right where it belongs under foreign aid.
I think also that the term social program is misleading. Many conservatives conveniently lump anything non-military under this term. What I would like to see is a break down on the chart of military spending (non long term outlays), non-military Agency spending, and welfare type spending (all subsidy spending programs included).
It is easy to confuse the issue by what is budgeted authority and what are outlays. The military generally has about a 50/50 split in authority and outlay, other government agency tend to receive primarily bugeted authority in real dollars. This is why a graph of the other agencies shows a nice steady line in the budget over time and the military looks like a scattergram. It is also what accounts for social program spending actually being a larger percentage of GDP than military spending because only half of what those charts show is that years spending and the rest are long term promises.
Torakus
UNESCO studies which compared social spending to military spending around the world to percentage of GDP paints a slightly different picture. In fact it indicates that as a % of GDP the U.S. spends more 5.8% on health, 4.8% on education, than the 3.4% toward military. The period 2003-04 there was a spike in military expenditure, primarily due to Bush's War (24% overall increase in real dollars). Other than that spike current military expenditure is following a very old trend, that most of the world shares. Even those nations that spend less by percentage on military do not spend more by percentage on social issues. Don't ask me how that works, I am just regurgitating what the UNESCO study reveals.
Aid to foriegn militaries is right where it belongs under foreign aid.
I think also that the term social program is misleading. Many conservatives conveniently lump anything non-military under this term. What I would like to see is a break down on the chart of military spending (non long term outlays), non-military Agency spending, and welfare type spending (all subsidy spending programs included).
It is easy to confuse the issue by what is budgeted authority and what are outlays. The military generally has about a 50/50 split in authority and outlay, other government agency tend to receive primarily bugeted authority in real dollars. This is why a graph of the other agencies shows a nice steady line in the budget over time and the military looks like a scattergram. It is also what accounts for social program spending actually being a larger percentage of GDP than military spending because only half of what those charts show is that years spending and the rest are long term promises.
Torakus