"Before you vote this election"..."posted 11-11-2008"

Which election are you talking about?

"And what our money says is that we favor war over anything else."
uhh - ok. So you think that all military spending is for war and that we favor war? Who in the hell favors war? We favor remaining an independent nation by protecting ourselves - and to prevent harm to ourselves and our way of life - not going to war for the sake of going to war.
Nice Chart - Why do you have to insert your political drivel?

This chart omits well over half of the federal budget. That isn't informative - it's borderline misleading.

"The immensity of military spending is made plain in this chart"

It looks pretty big when you omit social security and Medicare, sure.

No, Kevin, the chart does not say "we favor war over anything else". It says that the government has a responsibilty to spend money on defense of its citizens, property, and borders -- something private individuals or companies cannot do.

What this chart also does not say is how efficiently this money is spent. How are we doing in guarding against wastefulness and fraud in our government agencies?

I agree that our democracy needs informed citizens. That's why I'm appalled at our media's cheereading for our President-Elect, and their utter lack of objectivity or curiosity about his past or his radical associates.

I'm sure with the next Presidential Administration, this chart will become completely remade. I hope you'll be happy with the results.

I really enjoy Cool Tools. Thank you.

Indeed that chart looks very cool! But please leave out the non-sequiturs and political opinions from your reviews. I get enough of that crap from everywhere else. Thanks!

Yes, the USA spends kind of a lot on military, BUT we had to use war to get our freedom from Mother England.

And then we had to use force to get the locals to let us take over the place.

And then, we had to keep it away from Hitler and Japan. That sort of thing hasn't just stopped, sorry to say. Tho' I am a 'peacenic', I've had to call for protection from some with, shall we say, selfish intent. I sure wish humans were a gentler sort.

You mention an interactive online version of this chart; what's the link? Thanks!

looks very cool, but isn't it a bit late to peruse it before voting?

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Before you vote this election, spend some time with this guide to see how our national priorities shape up.
-- KK
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Oops, I think the proofreading may have been done sometime before November 4th :)

Not so much "we favor war" as "we prefer not to be steamrollered."

No matter what we claim our values are, how we spend our hard earned money speaks a thousand times louder and more truthfully about our real priorities. And what our money says is that we favor war over anything else.
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Well, no.
What this chart says is that defense is the most expensive thing we want government to do for us.

There is not a lot of science funding because the non-governmental sector of our country is doing just fine on that score without government money - giving the world one new scientific invention or medical innovation after another.

Education gets less because its less expensive to do than waging war.

This chart is more about propaganda than facts - or rather, such a "snapshot" view leaves things wide open to (mis)interpretation.

Two things about the "massive" military spending:

1) What most people -- even most U.S. citizens -- do not understand about U.S. military spending is that it's always been a good way to underwrite economic development in various areas of the U.S. *without* appearing "socialist" or "interventionist." Much U.S. military spending is good old-fashioned pork-barreling for a Congressman's/woman's/Senator's constituency. Need to pump a few billion into the poor areas? Increase funding for the military! Love of war has very little to do with it, and I REALLY, REALLY wish Americans would stop beating themselves up about it so much. In addition, military spending is also a way of funding both science and technology, again without appearing to do so to all those people who think sci/tech government funding is a waste of their tax dollars.

2) Despite the above, "excessive" military spending in the U.S. is partly America's way of underwriting the lack of said spending in the rest of the world. Everyone seems to think that the U.S. needs to be the global cop, but cops need weapons, and reaching out and touching someone that's misbehaving halfway around the world ain't cheap. Most of my fellow Canadians sneer at the U.S.'s military, but forget that Canada's social programs have largely been subsidized over the past 50 years by the willingness of most Americans to keep pumping money into their own military. Result? Canada's largely had a free ride, and has been able to scale back its military accordingly, dumping the surplus into all manner of social programs, which segments of America's population are deeply envious of. What's true for Canada is true for many other Western countries, too. In short, Canada has the best social programs that U.S. taxpayers could buy (and we've got a lot of misplaced moral righteousness about 'em as well).

As long as direct redistributionist policies are unacceptable to a significant fraction of the U.S. voting public, and as long as the ROW expects the U.S. to always be there in times of crisis, you're gonna "overspend" on your military. It doesn't necessarily mean you're hopelessly addicted to war. It could just as easily be interpreted that everyone else is hopelessly addicted to your country doing their dirty work.

Garth

One (major) limitation of this chart is that it includes discretionary spending only. The major entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and more, are not shown at all.

The FAQ explains their reasoning, but it is worth noting since entitlement spending is a gigantic portion of the federal budget and it's completely ignored.

I wrote my review before the election but Steven didn't post it till after the election, so that part of the review has been amended to reflect the date.

On the rest, I stand by my comments. War, in the way we wage it now, is certainly our most expensive task, but that is only by our choice. Also we have great choice in how much war we wage. Our expenditures -- expensive as they are -- are choices not predetermined in any way.

It is true we sneak all kinds of productive funding into the category of "military spending." Particularly a lot of science and development. But that charade is a type of dishonesty that affects the good things that do get funded and it only perpetuates the exaggerated power and allure of real military funding. I think we all do better using words, terms, and language that is true rather than coded or disguised.

Lastly, yes, of course we need a military to defend our freedoms. But we need far far less of it than we have. (And we need a different kind of defense than we are currently buying; a different story.) Military spending (and not just the US) is an addiction like over-eating. The solution is not to stop eating entirely, but to slim down. If you weighed 750 pounds and spent most of your discrentionary income on food, it is fair to say you have a problem.

This poster show us our national body image, and we have a problem.

kk sez: "Our expenditures -- expensive as they are -- are choices not predetermined in any way."

Your governmental forefathers in the 30s and 60s did their best to make things like medicare and social security as predetermined (unkillable) as possible.

Here, here, Kevin; well said

One of the first items of a university macro-economics class it to compare the effect on the economy of military spending vs. public works. (A hint, military spending is not effective at putting money into the economy).

If you want to buy war toys, fine: buy them. If you want to stimulate the economy, do that. Do not expect a two-for.

A lot of the "crisis" we find is due to the way our corporations do business overseas (no, it does not justify terrorist attacks, but it does explain them) and the way we support them diplomatically and militarily. If that's okay with you, again, fine.

And if you want to address economic competitiveness, look no further than our private healthcare system. Other "socialist" governments make their companies far more profitable by removing the neck-anchor of healthcare. If the vast profits that the insurance corporations make were split 50-50 between better services and (worst case) waste, we would all come out ahead. The time and annoyance of the multi-payer system is absurd; what mythologies about capitalism do we believe in the face of the realities we live in?

I don't go off like this often, but I was inspired.

Cheers

Kevin, what's your response to the most important point: that this chart leaves out at least half of the federal budget? The three biggest programs (social security, medicare and medicaid) represent healthcare spending and our aid to the elderly. While social security is theoretically a "trust fund", I think even the public realizes that that is a fiction. Medicare and medicaid don't even have that fig leaf. Other entitlements are critical, too, but of course even just the three I mentioned are gigantic omissions.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10609044/

Wallstats says they don't include these programs for two reasons. First, because they'd shrink the poster's print on the other programs down to unreadability. But that kind of is the point, isn't it? If we're to see the proportional contribution to different kinds of causes, it's bad cricket to simply change the proportions so it can look pretty. Second, because they're entitlements. However, it's important to realize that for most causes, whether something is created as a discretionary or an entitlement line item has everything to with legislative maneuvering.

Either way, this chart does NOT show our national body image. It shows a funhouse mirror version where our spending on the poor, elderly and sick are drasticallly understated. Who knows whether Wallstats intended this or not. YOU are the man recommending it and using it to prove a point, and I'd like to hear you advance your argument under conditions of academic honesty.

@ Rob: I agree with you fully. I would much prefer to see the entire budget. It would be a design challenge to make it "readable" but that would also make it that more powerful. I think this partial view is a fault of the current chart. I think an examination of a person's entire spending is a much better profile of their true priorities, but in absence of that full record an account of their discrentory spending will also provide a lesser portrait. But until someone comes along with a better version -- or points to me to one that already exists -- this one, as imperfect as it is -- is the best body image we have. Perhaps its weakness will inspire others to improve what it has begun.

Kevin, you're a perceptive and persuasive person, but you were out of line with this business about "we favor war over anything else." First, because the Federal budget is only about a fifth of all spending. Second, because defense spending is only about a fifth of Federal spending. Third, and most crucially, because defense spending is not war spending. Hell, most of what we spend on the only war we're in isn't really war spending.

We spend considerably more on education than on defense. We spend three times as much on social programs. We spend several times as much on housing.

So cut the crap, huh? Admit you screwed up and continue doing what you do well.

That's a fair point. I'll keep my eye out if you do!

I have amended my review, deleting my statement "...And what our money says is that we favor war over anything else." Many commentators have pointed out that this statement is wrong since the scale is true of federal discretionary spending but not for the overall budget, where defense funding lags behind social security and health spending. To keep my review fair and clear I have removed that sentence to remove any confusion, although I have left the statement about the "immensity of military funding and paucity of science funding" -- which I stand by.

Thanks. I don't think it's appropriate for the government to fund scientific work except for that required for public safety-- military, public health, etc.-- and we already do that. But that's a difference of opinion, not a difference of fact.

I'd like to see an animated version of this chart to see how our priorities have changed over the years.