Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
The cats and I were trying to understand what all those useless eaters were fighting about in Washington DC. Decided it must be unhappiness about the way the money was spent in 2013, so I went for a look.
As you can see, a huge percentage of the discretionary money wasn’t spent on National Defense in 2013.
Turns out there are two types of spending going on. Mandatory spending is one, discretionary is the other. The chart above depicts where they spend the money coming out of taxes and they can tweak.
The “Social Security & Unemployment” and “Medicare & Health” take on a major fraction of the federal spending, amounting to about 58% of the total outlays, whereas “Military” spending appears to amount to just 18%. The problem with this representation is that the Social Security & Medicare are parts of the mandatory spending directly financed by the dedicated revenue raised from payroll taxes, as imposed by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), not through the Federal income tax and thus represents a different Treasury account.
If we separate the mandatory spending and look only at the discretionary spending component appropriated by Congress on an annual basis and for which all the federal programs compete, a very different picture arises.
Probably that enormous portion of the budget being frittered away on non-defense spending is what has those people upset and shutting down the government. Each one of those non-defense slices could be halved or quartered easily so’s to provide a means of continuing and even increasing defense spending without anyone feeling the pinch.
There’s no way any US citizen has any business feeling safe when we aren’t even matching the combined rest of the world in military spending.
The US isn’t even spending half as much on national defense as the rest of the world combined is spending on theirs. It’s no wonder those elected representives and senators are digging in their heels. They’re scared.
Congress knows their primary responsibility is to protect the citizenry from foreign invaders and likely they won’t give an inch until they know they’re doing it.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
Yahtzee!
Hi Swabby. Yahtzee was a board game back there somewhere, I think. Not sure why you wanted to remind me about it. I was always an old Monopoly man. Gracias, Jack
Hi Jules,
Seams to me the spending they never bring up, yet, all of us know in the dark recesses of our mind, is that of giving to other nations for their own discretionary spending, often ending up in their leaders own pockets. That is something we should not spend a single cent on until all our bills are paid and then we should look very carefully before giving a single cent to any nation.
Much of our “entitlements” (a term that is used the opposite of its meaning) should be sharply shaved and many eliminated. Where people are to stupid to do the smart thing, i.e. build on high ground or build well above ground level to avoid flood waters and getting flooded by arroyos which rarely run. They are dry now and the weeds have grown in to fill all except a very narrow channel so there is no fear of a flood or high waters. Ha Ha. That is the ultimate in stupid and we, sadly, fuel it by giving them flood insurance that we the people pay for.
The only true entitlements are the ones that we were forced to pay out of our paychecks and are supposed to get back in the form of Social Security checks after age 62 or older and medicare. Everything else is a gift from us tax payers. There is a book I read a review on today that covers the government entitlements beautifully and how to escape the damage done by being in the system. It is heart rendering and angering so it is not recommended for everyone. The name, if I remember correctly, is “Dying on Indian Reservation” or “Indian Land”, something like that. Any way. Blessings friend. Mary
Hi Mary: They could cut all the discretionary entitlements to the bone without making a dent in things, seems to me. The old story about they asked a bank robber why he robbed banks and he answered, because that’s where the money is pretty well applies to the military budget. But I don’t care if they cut all of them. Jack