Former Harvard president and MEC economic advisor Larry Summers has a column in the Washington Post today that takes a statist position regarding the size of government - that its continued growth is inevitable. He outlines five reasons why he asserts this is so. When one reads through them, the thought occurs that if we just either privatized those matters or quit undertaking them altogether, shrinking the federal government would be no problem at all.
He tosses out the idea that defense would be an area to cut, but he never gets to the specific reality that defense spending only accounts for 16 percent of the budget. Rather, to back away from it nearly as soon as he offers it, he relies on the idea's likely unpopularity in a dangerous world and time.
His argument is predicated on the assumption that the American people assume the Big Three Entitlements to be a given in their lives, but the surge of interest in what Paul Ryan has to say would indicate otherwise.
Your 16% figure does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup, and production, which is in the Department of Energy budget, Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department's payments in pensions to military retirees and widows and their families, interest on debt incurred in past wars, or State Department financing of foreign arms sales and militarily-related development assistance. Neither does it include defense spending that is not military in nature, such as the Department of Homeland Security, counter-terrorism spending by the FBI, and intelligence-gathering spending by NASA. Including non-DOD expenditures, defense spending was approximately 28-38% of budgeted expenditures and 42–57% of estimated tax revenues.
ReplyDeleteAs for keeping up with the Jonses:
The 2009 U.S. military budget accounts for approximately 40% of global arms spending. The 2012 budget is 6-7 times larger than the $106 billions of the military budget of China, and is more than the next twenty largest military spenders combined. The United States and its close allies are responsible for two-thirds to three-quarters of the world's military spending (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for the majority).
In 2005, the United States spent 4.06% of its GDP on its military (considering only basic Department of Defense budget spending), more than France's 2.6% and less than Saudi Arabia's 10%.This is historically low for the United States since it peaked in 1944 at 37.8% of GDP (it reached the lowest point of 3.0% in 1999–2001). Even during the peak of the Vietnam War the percentage reached a high of 9.4% in 1968.[40] Countries such as Canada and Germany spend only 1.4% of GDP on their military.
Source: Wikipedia
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't I pay into both Medicare and Social Security? So what's my moral failing in expecting a pay-out?
ReplyDeleteYour comparative-spending stats make my case as well. Is there something objectionable about that? It's why we've been able to be the world's sole hyperpower.
ReplyDeleteIt's certainly no moral failure. It's just that those programs are going broke because the money you paid in went right back out to fund general-purpose activities. And now someone has to figure out how to get you your money - and what we're going to do about those currently under 55.
“Wait a minute!” some readers will say. Hasn’t Social Security been receiving surplus revenue ever since the 1983 payroll tax hike? Isn’t there supposed to be approximately $2.5 trillion in the Social Security trust fund? The answer to both questions is yes. But there is a problem. Every dollar of that surplus Social Security revenue has already been spent by the government. Much of it went to fund wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The rest has been spent on other government programs.
ReplyDeleteRead: http://ampedstatus.org/how-your-social-security-money-was-stolen-where-did-the-2-5-trillion-surplus-go/