Exactly what spending has caused our national debt? (Afghanistan, soldiers, March)
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There is a distortion of how our income tax dollars are spent because it includes Trust Funds (e.g., Social Security), and the expenses of past military spending are not distinguished from nonmilitary spending. For a more accurate representation of how your Federal income tax dollar is really spent, see the above pie chart.
And now let's show an honest representation of where tax money goes. As usual you selectively choose sources. Yes, military spending is a big problem, but social welfare spending is an even bigger problem than that.
No, it is not. "Real" simply adjusts the value according to a price index. The "CPI" is the "Consumer Price Index" which is a government figure your charts are using to normalize the data.
Even if we assume CPI was an accurate measure of prices (it isn't), price indices do not adjust for economic growth.
Because, like I said, we grow more productive and efficient every year.
Because Americans earn more than they did in 1950.
Listen, your point may be valid, that the government is growing as a share of the economy .... however these graphs are totally misleading and simply do not lead to that conclusion.
I'm having trouble finding good data, but from what I have seen, average income has increased by ~1.5x in the same time period (adjusted for constant dollars). That is a relation to productivity. Yet taxes have increased more than 3X and spending 5x.
Why should government spending per person INCREASE? If the federal government saw the same gains in productivity that the private sector has, costs (spending per person) should be going down, not up.
The beast in the room that nobody wants to address of course is entitlement programs that eat away and will only get worse as baby boomers hit the rolls at 10K a day.
Actually the beast in the room is rising healthcare costs plus rising defense costs.
Here is Defense expenditures:
As health care eats up a greater part of GDP, all other costs become less relevant.
And now let's show an honest representation of where tax money goes. As usual you selectively choose sources. Yes, military spending is a big problem, but social welfare spending is an even bigger problem than that.
Social programs spending (at least 52% of the budget, if not more) is the bulk of the federal budget. National defense and security is only 21%.
A major reason social welfare spending consumes a large portion of the budget is the fact that those receiving public assistance have a birth rate 3 times that of everyone else. (More info here: https://www.city-data.com/forum/21896737-post150.html )
The welfare-dependent class is increasing exponentially, as are the costs of continuing to financially support them.
(While I support a strong defense, I don't support spending more than we did during the cold war and VN. There is room to make significant cuts. How about we retire some generals, admirals and sensitivity trainers?)
Welfare:
The 600 lb gorilla, health care.
Last but not least, pensions for federal government employees. Note that this is about equal to defense and health care spending. Think we have a problem here?
I'm having trouble finding good data, but from what I have seen, average income has increased by ~1.5x in the same time period (adjusted for constant dollars).
As long as you're adjusting by CPI, you're being misleading. You call it "constant dollars," but it is not constant dollars. There is no such thing as a constant dollar; there is no conceivable way to measure such a thing.
A better, but still flawed way to measure what you're trying to measure is government spending as a % of GDP, and government revenue as a % of GDP.
You can see that we've had our ups and downs, but generally speaking, the trend has been pretty stable.
http://nationalpriorities.org/resources/federal-budget-101/charts/general/federal-outlays-and-revenues-1930-2015-perc-gdp/ (broken link)
for example:
Quote:
Why should government spending per person INCREASE?
Because incomes have historically increased. when you make $10,000 and pay 15%, that yields less revenue and spending than when you make $11,000 and pay 15%. Where did the extra $1,000 come from over the course of the year?
Incomes increase for a wide variety of reasons; in this case I'd say it is a result of an increasing household debt-to-income ratio, but it could also be driven by simple economic growth.
Quote:
If the federal government saw the same gains in productivity that the private sector has, costs (spending per person) should be going down, not up.
Productivity isn't the only thing that drives this "growth", it is just as much a result of private-sector debt creation as anything else.
Last edited by Cletus Awreetus-Awrightus; 11-29-2011 at 09:21 AM..
And now let's show an honest representation of where tax money goes. As usual you selectively choose sources. Yes, military spending is a big problem, but social welfare spending is an even bigger problem than that.
What is breaking the bank? The FORVER WAR and the financiers and profiteers gaining from it.
Have you read this thread? Welfare programs are 'breaking the bank' much more than war.
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
That's not the entire budget. Discretionary spending is only approx. 1/3 of the federal budget.
I agree completely that welfare programs pose a greater financial stress to this country than military does at this time. I also, however, am a big advocate of spending cuts across the board. Dramatic non-partisan cuts to both military and welfare programs is what this country needs right now.
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