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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

This is not at all how the accounting for Social Security, Medicare, and other mandatory spending programs work. Generally, Social Security beneficiaries receive more than they paid in (invariably they do with Medicare). And, obviously, everyone receiving Medicaid and SSDI do. I don't think this technical point about Social Security is going to salvage the argument that the US pays more in defense than anything else.

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Apparently you don't understand how pensions work. Take a 401(k). Under normal circumstances what you take out of the 401(k) far exceeds what you put into it. This is what happens with investments generally speaking.

Saying, "Social Security beneficiaries receive more than they paid in..." indicates you don't know what you are talking about. And, believe it or not, Social Security does invest money.

And yes, it does salvage the argument. Defense spending (all of it not just DOD) is the largest expense of the government. This is expected when you are the hegemon.

Defense spending isn't even the majority of discretionary spending.

It's simply an enormous, vast economy, and 13% of a vast economy is a huge number, large enough to outspend the next several countries combined. That's all.

Regardless, social security is funded totally separately from the rest of the budget, with a dedicated tax, and does not contribute to the deficit. It’s typically excluded from budget discussions, for that reason.

You could change the law to axe social security, keep its highly-regressive tax, and instead use that to pay for other stuff—but lots of things are possible with a change in the law, and that’s not possible now without such a change. That’s not something that can happen as an ordinary part of the budgeting process.

I'm not saying I like everything about federal spending (or even defense spending), just that the argument that we spend most of our money on defense (or even a plurality of it) is false.

I didn’t say it was a majority. I said it was the largest expense. Plurality vs. majority.

You are absolutely wrong in your belief. Defense spending is roughly 50% of discretionary spending.

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59729

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