this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Mildly Interesting

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This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.

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I assume "Other purposes" is govt kickbacks to mining and gas companies ๐Ÿ˜ฌ

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[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

This is very easy to find with a simple google search. Here's the year-to-date spending for 2023:

$1.01T social security
$673B health
$636B medicare
$623B income security
$610B defense
$494B net interest
$220B veteran benefits & services
$201B education, training, employment, and social services
$89B transportation
$74B community and regional development
$179B other

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but is the USA spending $1.3T on healthcare and it's still not free?

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yes.

Welcome to America! The greatest nation!

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

And another 2.5Trillion on the private side. Spend more on healthcare than any other country with the same or worse outcomes.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Social security is SELF-FUNDING, and even still lends money to the general fund. Yes, this a list of all government spending, but it isn't what your FICA payment goes towards. Military spending is #1 for that.

[โ€“] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

So the comment you're replying to was pretty much completely incorrect. Wonder if they'll revise their statement

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Not only is it pretty common for a democracy to be pretty open about how they spend their tax budget, it's really common for these figures to be discussed when attacking America ๐Ÿ™„

[โ€“] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Of course not, because it's much easier to just go "haha America dumb and bad"

Can't let the facts get in the way of that.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I mean, we spend more on defense than the next several nations combined and we haven't won a war in 80 years.

We spend more on healthcare than every other nation and it's still the most expensive healthcare system in the world.

We spend hundreds of billions on a welfare system that forces people on it to keep working until the day they die.

We throw out billions in kickbacks and "incentives" to billion dollar companies.

I could go on with the numerous, seemingly never ending problems with the US, but the point is that our system is indeed bad and dumb. Nothing we have works, and all of it is extremely over funded and under delivering. At this point, tearing it all up and starting again seems like the easier way to fix things, and getting to that point is never good