2014 US Budget - 47.6% on Defense - 13.4% on Labor, Health, and Education combined

[Taiknee]

Not sure how this happened, but today I just had a feeling to search what the U.S. government debt is and what they are spending the tax dollars on.

Well, out of a major coincidence, the Congressional Budget Office released the budget for 2014 *today* and I came across it.
Note: This is the discretionary spending - that which can be changed - this is not the total overall spending. Sorry for any confusion on my part.

The U.S. government is spending 47.6% of its discretionary budget (~$571.8 billion) on Defense and 13.4% (~$160.8 billion) on "Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education".

Some important questions to me are:
-Why is the U.S. spending so much on Defense and what is it being used for?
-Who are the representatives who keep pushing Defense spending, and what are their ties to the companies with the biggest Defense contracts?

Link to 2014 budget: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/fil...nts/hr3547.pdf

[Deleted]

That really is too much, time to cut down on those overseas bases.

[Orange Joe]

Our military is not only used to fight wars.


http://www.military.com/join-armed-f...-overview.html

[Naxere]

Cut them all across the board.

[Orange Joe]

Cut them all across the board.

And when millions are suddenly without a paycheck? What do we do then?

[Tradewind]

Our military is not only used to fight wars.


http://www.military.com/join-armed-f...-overview.html

How much of that $578B do you imagine those "non-war" things account for?

[Rukentuts]

Cut them all across the board.

Yeah no. Slash defense slightly and raise taxes.

[Orange Joe]

How much of that $578B do you imagine those "non-war" things account for?

A good chunk of it is going to just be payroll checks. You do know there are millions of Americans that use the military as a full time job.

[Rukentuts]

A good chunk of it is going to just be payroll checks. You do know there are millions of Americans that use the military as a full time job.

Which costs more than the private sector due to hardware capital costs.

[Deletedaccount1]

I dont want to lose my job

[Deleted]

And when millions are suddenly without a paycheck? What do we do then?

you slow recruitment to a crawl and let people retire slow time, cuts should be made over a decade not over night.

[Orange Joe]

Which costs more than the private sector due to hardware capital costs.

So should we go private and loss millions of jobs for people?

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you slow recruitment to a crawl and let people retire slow time, cuts should be made over a decade not over night.

I'm not against this, but a sudden cut would be devastating.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Cut them all across the board.

Cutting Millitary by a few % is the better option then *CUT EVERYTHING NAO1111111*. We don't need anymore cuts on Education, Human Services and such. It's just stupid. I'm not asking for our military to just stfu and dearm themselves. No, just lay off the burning of the greens.

[Rukentuts]

So should we go private and loss millions of jobs for people?

We could cut the military and spend it on infrastructure have have a net gain to the economy. Not only for jobs, but for infrastructure everybody and everything uses.

[Eme]

NSA spying the whole world costs billions of $, that is an important part of "defense".

[Olo]

Stop fucking confusing total spending with discretionary spending. Christ. How many times do we need to cover this.

[Grizzly Willy]

NSA spying the whole world costs billions of $, that is an important part of "defense".

I'm interested in seeing a source for this.

[Deleted]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...military_bases

They can start by looking at this list and chopping away.

[Orange Joe]

We could cut the military and spend it on infrastructure have have a net gain to the economy.

And those millions that no longer are working?


For people saying our military spending is too much. we are 13th based on % of GDP

[Rukentuts]

I'm interested in seeing a source for this.

It might cost "billions" (low billions at most) for initial hardware but certainly not operating costs.

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And those millions that no longer are working?

Who rebuilds infrastructure?