Slashdot Mirror

Social benefits, welfare, subsidized medical, and food stamps. About $0.70 of every dollar of spending by the Federal Government is spent on Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, welfare payments and servicing the national debt. Everything else - defense, IRS, EPA, transportation, education, customs, research, etc - comprises the other $0.30. SOURCE

I really wonder where people get some of their numbers from, especially when it comes to defense/military spending. The best numbers I can seem to find are the following with some historical context:
2011 budget proposal
2013 budget proposal (best view by department)
2012 budget proposal
2013 budget table by department
Lots of details here that you can drill down into
current running totals for the current fiscal year
There are probably more good sources I could find that seems like a good start.

Another issue is that the US gov't spends more on debt interest than on education. http://www.usfederalbudget.us/defense_budget_2012_3.html There's a math joke in there somewhere.

Until we stop spending trillions on military, our money problems won't stop. It's our single biggest cost, because for some reason we seem to need to be the world's police.
http://www.usfederalbudget.us/defense_budget_2012_3.html

Most social justice programs are generally cheap

Are you mad? Welfare, pensions (largely social security), education, and health care account for 60% of Federal spending in FY 2012. Defense is 24%, and EVERYTHING ELSE is 16%

Who pays for the extra month(s) of school? Localities across the US are already strapped for cash. Increase teacher's salaries by 20% (ish) and things get worse. And when will they do their continuing ed to remain accredited or get higher degrees? Similar stories for custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, etc. In many (most?) school districts, only parts of the administration are 12 month employees. There's also an increase in electricity and possible retrofitting of AC in places that don't have it.

Excellent thinking - let's save money by not giving the kids the best education we can. That's not only good for the kids (more vacation!) but it's great for the society!

Hell for that matter why not cut the school year to save money!!!

Fuck it let's just stop providing free school to our kids...if the parents care enough they'll find the money to pay for their kids to go to school!

And suddenly we find ourselves a third world country without free education and only two classes - the rich who can shell it out and the rest who cannot. The US is already headed there anyway, at the rate it's going with University costs.

To actually answer your question, the extra school being discussed could easily be paid for by avoiding wars that don't need to be fought. Note that I am specifically saying wars that don't need to be fought, as opposed to wars that do need to be fought.

Putting aside the human cost of lives on both sides of the equation:

"...the total for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is at least $3.2-4 trillion."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

Spending in USD billions: 2011 2012
        Education 29.8 121.1
        Defense 964.8 925.2
http://www.usfederalbudget.us/defense_budget_2012_3.html

I totally disagree. On the contrary, military spending is not a mere blip on the radar of our budget. According to http://www.usfederalbudget.us/federal_budget_actual, the *actual* defense budget was about 24% of the total budget between 2006-2011.

The three biggest spending areas in 2011 were defense (24%), health care (24%) and pensions (22%). Education was 3%.

Indeed, our military spending IS too large, as are numerous other programs. The US's finances are a disgrace. We desparately need to cut our budget and reduce spending. This is not sustainable.