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 | Skyscraper on Burrard Street. Vancouver, BC, Canada July 27, 2008 |
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« Dad's Done! | Main | March 23 Confab » March 23, 2006"Death and Taxes"I had an e-mail forward earlier this week to a fascinating graphic that breaks down the US Government's $782Bn discretionary spending (meaning that it excludes mandatory commitments like Social Security payments). Discretionary spending for the government is just like discretionary spending in your personal life: you get income, take out your taxes, and what's left over is what you can spend on whatever you like. So where do we spend our money? Well, overwhelmingly we like to spend to blow stuff up: more than $0.50 on the dollar goes to the military. This kind of picture is exactly what's needed to start a conversation about our real priorities in this country. Why, for instance, are we spending $3.686Bn on the C17 Air Transport program for the Air Force ... and only $0.795Bn on the Small Business Administration (the agency that, among other things, helps Americans start and run their own businesses)? Why do we spend nearly as much on prisons ($4.492Bn) as we do on the FBI ($4.640Bn)? This is amazing, amazing data. (And the graphic is hi-res enough to make a great desktop picture...) Posted by Gavin Shearer at March 23, 2006 9:46 AM. Posted to Politics. |