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Comment by nonfinn1039 | Hacker News Reader

I keep hearing this myth about that US taxpayer dollars go mostly to the military. Sure it's a big ticket item, but half of it goes to social programs: 2019 (USD):

- Health and Human Services: 1,215 Trillion(27%)

- Social Security: 1,101 Trillion (25%)

- Department of Defense: 658 Billion (14.7%)

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

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The DoD list item doesn't include the intelligence agencies, DHS, OCO, VA, defense share of debt servicing and other spending. A more honest number is $1.25 trillion [0].

[0] https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2019/05/making-sense-of-the-1-...

That's a bullshit number.

You want to roll in the entire Department of Energy budget?

You want to roll in the entire Department of Homeland Security budget? So airport security is now defense spending?

You want to roll in the entire USAID budget?

I mean, if you're going to do this, do it for other countries as well. Then the US spending won't seem all that out of line.

It's much, much closer to the real number.

The DoE budget is almost 3/4 defense related (25B/35B [0])

DHS is far more than TSA, which is only 16% of its budget.

I wouldn't have rolled the entire USAID budget in, but it's disingenuous to not include peacekeeping operations and military aid, which are a big part of it.

Regardless, even with adjustments you've pointed out, the number is well over $1t, which is almost double the disingenuous number that GP threw out.

[0] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2020/03/f72/doe-fy20...

You can’t throw social security in there since that’s actually paid into from workers. Yes it’s a Ponzi scheme-government backed. That’s not the same thing as a money pit with no revenue incoming.

They're all paid into by workers, taxes are taxes.

In order to withdraw from SS you must be eligible - including have had contributed to it in the past. The money is even accounted for separately from other government funds. The funds are supposed to go and have historically gone from contributor to beneficiary. It’s also not had funding problems until those funds got mishandled by past governments (congresses/presidents) and tapped for other things.

First link from google: https://chomsky.info/20050601/

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