UPDATE:In comments, both jonolan and jamesb have pointed out this chart is, at the very least, dishonest. They are right. I threw it up in haste. Bad me.
But it still sucks that our damn congress critters are going after PBS.
LOOKING FOR LIFE BEYOND CABLE NEWS AND FINDING THAT RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
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- Louis BrandeisTension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.
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Whatever Works 
The ole’ ‘guns or butter’ question ALWAYS gets the SAME answer!……
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This is what we, in common parlance call a lie. Of course, since the image was provided by Socialists, lying is to be expected.
Real spending breakdown of the big ticket items:
Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP: Approx 21% of of Fed Budget ($769 billion)
Defense and international security assistance: Approx 20% of Fed Budget ($718 billion)
Safety net programs: Approx 13% of of Fed Budget ($466 billion)
I’ll add the following:
Social Security: Approx 20% of the Fed Budget ($731 billion)
That’s a fuzzy one though and open to a great deal of debate as to whether it should be included as a “budget expense” due to the convoluted manner in which SSI is handled.
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:: sighs ::
America is capable of better than this.
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http://www.usgovernmentdebt.us/united_states_total_spending_pie_chart
jonolan has a point….
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But…
The Republican’s Ryan Budget seeks to INCREASE the Military part of the pie at the OTHER slices expense……
So the post IS partly correct….
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The concept that we spend unwisely on defense is sound, just all the details were wrong and grossly so.
I’ve always maintained that the Military’s budget should be drafted by the military w/o intervention by Congress. Congress should just be able to refuse funding for all or part of it and not to be able actually write it or add things to it.
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jonalan THAT would be a disaster……
it would be like giving the Generals’ a blank check….
it’s bad enough now….
believe me…
they DO need guidance…
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No, James; you misunderstand me. Like a departments, the Military should submit a budget to Congress. Congress should have the power to approve or disapprove of that budget, in whole or in part and to suggest alternatives or alternative sourcing. They just shouldn’t be able to MAKE that budget or add things to it that the Military – that would include the C-in-C – didn’t ask for in any form.
I’m not saying that the Military should just be able to decide how much to spend or on what to spend it without oversight.
Do this and we’ll be able to cut the military budget by at least 40% with no negative security results, not even potential ones since the annual military appropriations is at least 40% pork added by Congress for things the Military never even asked for or had already declined and began phasing out of service.
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jonolan indeed has more than a point – the chart I put up (in haste) is dishonest. I’ll note it on the front page.
But james, I like his idea of having the military itself work up the budgets. For decades now, they’ve said they need less than congress gives them. But congress is mindful that the defense industry is spread across 46!!! states and that means voters and jobs.
A caveat, there would have to be a mechanism to control the mass movement of lobbyists to the Pentagon, where they are already drowning in them.
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It may not be a correct representation of our tax dollars, but it could very accurately be used to emphasize the priorities of some!
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Or what some feel that the limits of the vested interests of the federal government should be, as opposed to priorities.
As an example, I’m all for funding education but don’t think ANY federal money should be spent upon it. That is solely within the purview and responsibilities of the several States.
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Ah, yes.
After all, the vast disparity in the level of education among the varying States is nothing for us to get our knickers in a twist over. So what if the power structure in some of the redder States put no emphasis on education? We the People shouldn’t interfere, those kids have a right to grow up illiterate bigots just like the people calling their shots!
Sounds good, Jon. Master plan.
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It could be a problem, though I’ll think you’d find that redder states’ children ended up outperforming bluer states’ children in the long run, especially in “applied education” and the job market.
That’s immaterial though. It’s not the federal government’s role to determine the education in the states and all these federal funds come with strings attached. They’re just ways of skirting the 10th Amendment of our Constitution.
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It’s not red/blue jonolan – it’s rich States / poor States. And the rich states do better by their kids for the obvious reasons and they tend to be blue states.
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I really don’t know where you came up with that. Just about every source that I’ve seen shows that bluer States have a higher rate of college graduates than their southern counterparts.
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You really can’t equate the rate of college graduates to people’s later success in life, not even if one limits success to the purely material realm, Samuel. Decades ago you could do so but not anymore.
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How are you defining success jonolan? Earnings over lifetime? Longevity? Health? Education? Moral outcomes (teen pregnancy etc?) . . . by all those measures, the blue states do much much better than the red states. And to me that says they’ve got very ineffective policies.
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Actually, Moe, most variances can be attributed to the fact that the Red states are less densely populated, having far fewer urban areas, and aren’t coastal for the most part.
Yet, despite all that, studies consistently show that people in those Red states are happier throughout their lives than those in Blue states.
As for education is particular – As long as the majority of college degreed jobs are for the government, the Blue states will produce more graduates with jobs. That, however, is a doomed system and we’re already seeing that its doom is upon it.
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Probably true about density and about coastal areas – they are always settled first – but that only tells me that more people choose that life. Did you know that the bluest of states have the lowest divorce rates in the country? I think Mass. has the very lowest.
Degreed jobs are for governement? That’s an argument I’ve never seen even examined, so I’d sure want to see some kind of measurement data.
But again, I must ask, how are gov’t jobs not real and important jobs? How is it that my county, building a new hospital, is not providing construciton jobs in the short run and hundreds of permanent jobs while providing value to the community? And those are gov’t jobs mostly. Are they not real jobs?
How ’bout the contractors my county gov’t hires? Like the guys who designed the traffic light systems in the county, which are now maintained and manned and monitored by govt’ workers in permanent jobs?
The Army Corps just dredged a waterway nearr where I live. It was pretty important to get it done and those Corps jobs are also permanent. Plus the end result is tremendous economic value to us, and to private businesses in the area.
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Read the 2010 Census data, Moe. Educational Services, Healthcare, and Social Assistance Services is the now the number 1 segment of employment at 23.2% of the total jobs and most of those jobs are government jobs.
Moe, the biggest issue with government jobs is that the bulk of them just redistribute wealth instead of creating any – or anything. When those become the major “industries” the economy has been either gone into autophagia, is sustaining itself through extractive economics outside its borders, or some combination of the two.
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[ government jobs is that the bulk of them just redistribute wealth instead of creating any – or anything.]
Education creates citizens and workers – is the private sector willing to step up? Do we beleive in universal education? Or would we rather skip that and be Afghanistan?
Healthcare includes the hundreds of thousands who staff public hospitals and administer things like Medicare . . . I don’t want to abandon those?
What’s the percentage of military in that 23%? Does it include the 853,000 (1.5x the population of DC) who now have ‘ top secret’ security clearance. We have an entirely new ” fourth branch” of governemnt since 9/11 – the 263 agencies of our security state.Does it include the staff of the 10,000 new offices/facilities around the country? Does it include police, FBI, tax collectors, road maintenance . . . come on jonolan . . . every job creates a customer who buys stuff, buys houses which need to buillt, cars that have to be manufactured . . . NASA, NOAA, Nat’l Institutes of Health, Veteran’s care, diggin the grave at military cemetaries, putting out the fires, responding to crimes and accidents. How are these not real jobs having a real impact on an economy.
Come on jonolan, how would you administer the affairs of a nation of 300+million people and the largest economy and military in the world? That takes a shitload of people.
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Moe, nothing that you’ve said contradicts the simple fact that the largest segment of American employment is now engaged in non-wealth producing efforts, and that percentage is growing.
We’re just shuffling money around via taxes instead of adding to the wealth and a lot of that money from buying stuff is leaving the country – of course a lot it comes back via the international stock markets but that just exacerbates that nasty old “income inequality.”
So we educate people and keep them healthy and provide them government assistance so that they can, in their turn, do the same for the next generation, ad infinitude? It’s a nice idea – until you run out of other people’s money.
The issue isn’t that these jobs exist; it’s that these are now the largest segments of the jobs and account for nearly a quarter of the total job figures.
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Yeah, that just confirms my suspicion that it’s better in a lot of ways to live in an urban area. As far as peeps in red states being happier somehow…I’d rather be thoughtful rather than just be happy all the time.
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Yup. and then they make more money.
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