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Comment by pupdogg | Hacker News Reader

US is set to collect approx. $3.86 trillion in taxes this year and 18.5% ($715 billion) of it is allocated for military budget and 1.3% ($51 billion) of it will be handed-out as Foreign Aid to other nations while another 8% ($300 billion) will be used to pay interest payments on our national debt. Only 3% ($115 billion) is allocated to modernize the bridges, highways, roads, and main streets that are in most critical need of repair. Maybe the government is the largest/legal ponzi scheme after all.

Edit: I provided a wrong figure earlier for Foreign Aid. As per @whatkim, the correct amount should be approx. 1.3% ($51 billion) for 2021.

You can see a complete categorical breakdown here: https://datalab.usaspending.gov/americas-finance-guide/spend...

Still, there are a few areas of concern:

1. Income Security > Other Income Security $831 billion

2. Education is 41% of the military budget! $296 billion

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Whatever you think of foreign aid, US foreign aid spending in 2021 was $51bn, not $300bn [1].

[1] https://foreignassistance.gov/

> 8% ($300 billion) of it will be handed-out as Foreign Aid to other nations while another

And how much of that $300 billion is actually just serving intelligence goals?

A lot of it is just backdoor appropriations to defense contractors. The aid is expected to be spent on materiel from US companies.

Who cares? The point is that 8% of US taxpayer money goes outside the US. Why shouldn't I be upset about that, or at least question it?

Most U.S. foreign aid is credit to be spent with U.S. defense manufacturers. In other words, "foreign aid" is a way to hand out U.S. hardware to allies or those for whom it's an effective bribe. The best example of this is Egypt, which has enjoyed ~$3B annually in U.S. gear as the payoff for making and keeping peace with Israel since the Yom Kippur war in 1973.

So the money does stay in the U.S., at least.

I don't really consider money going from my pocket, to Egypt, then to the US military industrial complex as "staying in the US." My taxes should go to things that benefit me and other regular citizens, not war profiteers.

If foreign aid is more affordable than foreign intervention, it could be an effective way to reduce military spending.

> reduce military spending

We could also just stop meddling in other countries' affairs so much.

Think of all the politicians, lobbyists and their families that depend on bribes from foreign entities to survive, you heartless monster!

You definitely should question it. The US had the highest foreign aid budget in the world but little to show for it.

If you are an effective altruist and want foreign aid to benefit the world, you should be concerned that it's funnelled to defence contractors instead.

If you just think the US wastes too much money on it's military you should be concerned that they are sneaking more money to defence contractors under the guise of humanitarianism.

US citizens enjoy a lot of wealth that was extracted (sometimes very violently) from the rest of the world, and you could make the argument that maybe the US citizens should give something back to the people whose exploitation they enjoy.

But in this case "foreign aid" seems to mean mostly "weapons for dictators", so it doesn't look like a constructive use of the funds.

Think that $300 Billion is over multiple years. E.g. https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/08/04/new... has $300B over six years, or between 1 and 2 percent.

So in fact, if your other number is correct, about 1/2 of the bridge budget.

What is your source for the foreign aid number (or any of your numbers, though defense and interest sound right to me)? Quick googling hasn’t let me confirm that, and it sounds high, my recollection was that it was more like 1%.

I mean, building all that car-centric infrastructure was always going to be unsustainable in the long run.

It really is sustainable, though. This take has been going around for some time and I think it is pretty wrong headed. (1) we seem to pay more for roads than any other industrialized nation and (2) infrastructure of all kinds, including roads, is criminally underfunded in America, as the parent was pointing out

Sprawl has thinned out development to the point that tax revenues from low-density cities can't support the crumbling infrastructure that has been built for it.

Over the past 50 years, Pittsburgh and other similar cities have tripled their developed areas while the region's population remains flat. That's a lot of additional infrastructure - roads, sewers, power, water and gas lines - to maintain without new revenue to maintain it.

Strong Towns has referred to this as the "growth ponzi scheme" and it's only going to get worse as population growth slows in this country.

https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

Strongtowns is just wrongheaded too. I have seen several articles debunking this one recently. I don't think it is a growth ponzi scheme for several reasons. It gets referenced here a lot, but it isn't very credible when you dig into their figures and math.

Would you happen to have the rebutting articles? I'd be curious to hear their criticism.

To me it adds up. I live in the a city that's sprawled without growth. I see the lifecycle

1. Used to be a dense city with most houses being doubles, and 3-5 story apartment buildings.

2. Built area has tripled since 1970 into mostly SFH suburbs, but population is the same

3. Outside the very newest suburbs, infrastructure has decayed tremendously. Taxes haven't really increased, the only time sewers or roads ever get repaired is with grants from the feds.

It happened to the city and now it's happening to the post-war suburbs.

I've been waiting a decade to read a good rebuttal to this. Please, post it here so I can read it and respond.

If you've seen several articles recently I would like to see one.

Yeah kinda puts the BBB bill in focus doesn't it. A bit of an own goal not investing in infrastructure there.

No, the infrastructure bill was bipartisan and it passed.

Pittsburgh got a lot of money from it for this kind of thing, although there obviously wasn't time to do anything yet.

The BBB bill wasn't for this, it was social spending.

"Foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich country give money to the rich people of a poor country"

—Michael Parenti

Your $300 billion number just isn't true. If you're looking at that Forbes article, well, it covers 6 years. So it's only $50 billion a year. About 30% of that you're counting twice because that was money from the US military budget they spent on foreign aid. So, a bit under a whopping $35 billion a year, or less than 1% of either tax receipts (which are actually over 4 trillion) or less than 0.5% of the US budget itself (6.8 trillion)

0.5% not 8%. These numbers are very different.

Although this bridge seems disconnected from the highway system, so I'm not even sure the US government even funds it at all.

It's usually not federal money that pays for this stuff though (at least directly).

The argument is it could or should be. It has in the past.

I must of missed the actual argument because I can't find where it was made other than complaining about a 3% allocation which is explained due to the large state & city budgets for this type of thing.

Then vote in politicians who supports your views

If you ever own a condo, you will realize that an extremely large number of people won’t even vote to fund the infrastructure that supports their bedroom.

Infrastructure is theoretically already popular but most would put it off for a few extra dollars.

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