Ted, Not 3/4.....roughly half.
I'm doing the math here. According to my source, defense and homeland security made up 17% of the total expenses. If that 17% represents half of discretionary spending, then that means 66% of total expenses is mandatory.
I believe either your math or your base numbers are faulty. Discretionary spending made up 40% of the 2004 budget while mandatory was 59% of the budget...interest paid made up the remaining 1%. Initially, defense at $454 billion was 51% of discretionary spending and 20% of the total budget. However, by the time the $80 billion for the Iraqi war was added into the mix at the end of the 2004 fiscal year, its share of discretionary spending increased to 55% and its share of the total budget increased to 23%. In addition, the gap between discretionary and mandatory spending narrowed by roughly 1-3%.
cbo.gov
Then I said "Up to 3/4 of the federal revenues are tied up in "mandatory" spending." Since revenues are lower than expenses, "mandatory spending" will obviously represent a larger percentage of revenues compared to its percentage of expenses.
Here are my figures:
Total Revenues: $2,350B
Total Expenses: $2,763B
Military: $358B
Homeland Security: $117B
I don't know where you are getting your numbers but my numbers which I believe come directly from the Office of the Budget don't agree with your's. According to their numbers, defense in 2004 was $454 billion. That means when you add in the $80 billion for Iraq that for whatever reason, was kept outside of the Defense budget that defense figure increases to a grand total of $534 billion.
Whatever the exact number, however, its too much. In fact, its a sin how much we spend on defense.
ted |
