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Funny, the graph you link only shows Social Security to be larger than the DoD budget.

some other numbers that might enlighten you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
http://www.visualeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ve-gov-spending-r2.swf

Obamacare doesn't go far enough. We need a single-payer system. The United States pays 16% of it's GDP in healthcare expenses, or approximately $5,700 per capita per year. The UK pays half of that; 8% of it's GDP, and $2,300 per capita per year. Despite all this, the infant mortality rate is 5.1% in the UK, compared to the US's 6.8%, and the life-expectancy in the US is 2 years shorter than in the UK.*

Anecdotes about the "horrors" of socialized healthcare are just that: anecdotes. The data shows the United States pouring more money than any other country in the world into a failing free-market healthcare system, where the only real winners are the insurance companies.

* - http://www.visualeconomics.com/healthcare-costs-around-the-world_2010-03-01/

That amount of money doesn't physically exist. According to this, there is something like $650 to $800 billion dollars in circulation in America at any one time. So this guy would some how have to get his hands on almost 150 times the current cash in physical circulation.

My suggestion would to be to

1) Estimate how much the average person spends per year on the type of entertainment infringed on as a percentage of income.

5.4% of income is spent on entertainment, and 3.4% of entertainment budget is on music. So 5.4*3.4 = .2% of total income is spent on music.

http://www.visualeconomics.com/how-the-average-us-consumer-spends-their-paycheck/
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/video-games-score-5-of-u-s-household-entertainment-budget/

Then take that number times the individuals income. So say 25,000 for the average individual.
25,000*.002= 50$

So that is the base amount for that individual. Now that can be multiplied times a penalty factor for willful infringement, etc.

The United States currently pays the most for health care by far compared to other industrialized nations. Subsidizing a wildly profligate system is not sustainable or wise in my opinion. Being that we are the most obese country in the world, we should cut the food subsidies that result in obesity first and only then may we find ourselves with an affordable and sustainable health care solution (with a nice benefit of a healthier population). Yes, I'm taking the statistical leap of faith and tying our obesity to our health care costs. I will continue to do so until I am shown otherwise. :^)

I suppose to the many in the slashdot community it may seem that way. It sure seems to me that the whole premise here presupposes that complete and total health care is a right.

Last time I read the constitution, it wasn't.

To put this "Health Care" crisis in perspective, Americans spend about three times as much on transportation as they do heath care.

Of course we would wouldn't want facts to get in the way of our political agenda.

Let the flaming commence.

Political powerful urban centers garner the lion's share.

This is false. New York and California have been paying more into the federal system than they have received for decades. States like Tennessee, Alaska, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Louisiana are the main beneficiaries of socialized Federal spending.

http://www.visualeconomics.com/united-states-federal-tax-dollars/

Very sorry to reply to a troll, but "The End of Days" seems to be talking a lot, and so here seems as good a place as any to reply.

http://www.visualeconomics.com/united-states-federal-tax-dollars/

According to this map, if you live in any of the states with a ratio that is greater than 1.0 then.... YOU'RE WELCOME. There are 18 states that spend less in Federal money than they pay out. Using my advanced degree in subtraction, that leaves 6 states which are "spending more than their fair share". No wait, that's 32. Sorry, it was an honorary degree.

So all you gits in Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Utah, North Carolina, Vermont, Iowa, Nebraska, !Wyoming!, Kansas, Arizona, Idaho, Tennessee, Maryland, Missouri, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Maine, Hawaii, Montana, Kentucky, Virginia, South Dakota, Alabama, North Dakota, West Virginia, Louisiana, Alaska, Mississippi, and New Mexico can just please shut the hell up.

Now, of course, if you live in one of the 18 that are contributing more, as I am, thank you. I say thank you, because you are contributing to the national well-being of this country, and therefore I benefit *even though I too am paying out more than "I" receive*!

If you feel that you are being treated unfairly, then I suggest you stop paying Federal income tax. Instead, calculate your "share" of any Federal resources you consume over the course of the year and pay that instead. I would be very surprised if that was less money than your income tax.

See you in January 2011.

While America's budget deficit may be higher than Canada's at present, the countries' total debt as a % of GDP is nearly identical.
So America has not, in fact, been more fiscally profligate than Canada in the long term.