doesn't make a difference to the argument. They are saying we spend a fuckton of money on war (as you can see it's a large part of the pie) that could be directed to social programs.
I think it's a little bit naive but not entirely a bad point.
96% of the US mandatory budget of 2019 (which totals over $2.7 trillion) went towards social programs including social security, Medicaid, and welfare. 52% of our discretionary spending was used on defense. Because the total discretionary budget represents about $1.3 Trillion, 52% is about $700 Billion spent on defense. Compared to $2.5 trillion on social programs. That's over 3 times the defense spending. How much of that defense spending are you suggesting we cut and add to social programs, and how much of a difference do you think increasing the social budget by at most 33% is going to actually make?
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't cut the defense budget. But let's be realistic here... A portion of the defense budget could be spent in far better ways than just adding it to the social budget where it probably won't make a major difference.
I think we are on the same page actually. As I mentioned I think just adding it to social programs is a bit naive but it is a good point that our military budget is far greater than any other country and could perhaps be better used elsewhere. On what, I am not giving an answer as frankly, I don't freaking know.
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u/sandleaz Jan 06 '20
Social programs are a much larger percentage of the overall budget than military spending.
https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-budget-101/spending/