Discretionary Spending Case Study

The Department of Defense (DOD) reports that the United States spent about $168 billion (worth around

As citizens of the United States of America we must pay taxes to the government. The government takes these taxes and distributes them among different areas to fund each are; one of the highest percentages of spending goes to defense. The whopping amount of around 610 billion dollars makes the United States’ military the largest in the world, so large that its funding out-weighs the next seven highest spending countries. The problem with this is that the military does not really solve the large amount of very important domestic affairs; in fact we barely see the fruits of it. There are many reasons why we should cut down on the percentage spent on defense and focus more on other areas.

With the numbers totaled the defense budget is currently sitting at a solid 3.5 percent of our GDP and there are still questions on how much more we can put in to make this country safe. The White House is calling for more money to be spent on national defense and their economists say that the United States can withstand a gross spending of somewhere around 9 to 10 percent of our GDP. The money to pay for any

Donald Trump’s audacious administration is actually proposing a budget for 2018 that increases military spending by 54 billion dollars!(4) To make this feasible massive cuts have to be made to the detriment of bureaucratic organizations such as: the department of education, the EPA, department of labor, housing and urban development department. To give that number a frame of reference, the estimated cost of providing tuition free public universities under the 2016 Sanders plan is approximately 75 billion dollars.(5) We already have nearly eight hundred military bases around the world, do we really need to allocate more resources to this department in which we already have the ability to act unilaterally on a global scale with impunity?(6) Or are there other departments in our society that could benefit more from an influx in funding?

“The United States spent $598.5 billion dollars alone on the military in 2015. That is 54% of all spending in 2015. The US only spent $70 billion (6%) on education and $13.1 billion (1%) on food and agriculture.” (“Military Spending”). This shows what Americans really value.

15. What are your thoughts of the importance of understanding the per patient day (PPD)

In the past America has been a dominant superpower in the field of military strength, but for the last few decades, our military has encountered abounding liquidations and sequestrations, which lead to huge budget cuts. Nevertheless, America has faced many politicians planning to cut down on our military by virtue of it is simply cost effective. The Clinton Foundation has been cutting our military for countless years. Also, under the Obama Administration has been enacting laws comparable to the Budget Control Act or (BCA) which has been siphoning our military for the past 8 years. For countless years, defense officials remain silent due to the Obama Administration, vaguely America could keep its budget under control. Consequently, all four

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down and that will help lower the defense spending by almost $1 trillion over the next decade. The congress is realizing that they need to do some restructuring and have already begun rearranging the military budget in response to austerity. Congress conjured up a $630 billion defense appropriations bill that made plans to reduce civilian and contractor personnel by 5 percent over the next five years and in return ramp up advanced weapons programs, including drones, bombers and missiles says The Washington Post. The American Conservative

The military is something that has been a bit costly for a while, the US according to a graph given by Peter G. Peterson spends an average of more than seven

The United States of America’s defense budget is accounted for by the spending for the Department of Defense. All the funding directed to the Department of Defense covers its base budget through payment of the department 's normal activities (National Priorities). Most presidential candidates support the idea of the United States of America developing a bigger military force or at least leaving it as big as it currently is, except most notably Berny Sanders. The United States of America currently stands at a $494 billion-dollar deficit (US Debt Clock) and many politicians want to reduce this deficit by cutting down budget or enforcing a balanced budget amendment. Berny Sanders has for years and still at the moment still criticizing politicians who have such ideas which he terms as regressive. Berny Sanders argues that the federal defense spending and military budget are three times larger than that of the second biggest spender: China. He further argues that even among military members, many believe that

The U.S. Armed Forces is one of the best equipped and mobile forces in modern history. According to the Defense Department Undersecretary’s of Defense Comptroller’s Office provides a budget authority estimate for fiscal year 2017 at 523.9 billion dollars with an additional amount of 58.6 billion dollars going to Other Contingency Operations (OCO) missions deploying to operations like the one in Afghanistan (Green Book). One of the things that I get upset over is waste and destruction of government property because of environmental concerns or because the cost is greater by

The Department of Defense (DOD) was recently approved a budget of $582.7 billion for 2017. $112.1 billion of this budget was specifically to “develop and procure equipment, technology, and capabilities…” [1].

The U.S is spending lots of money on military, but we might need to spend more. The U.S spends over 601 billion dollars, but to thrive instead of survive. We need to cut back on unimportant to survive. We are also worried about other countries who are cheating us out of our money! Too add on top of all, that no one is afraid of us anymore.

Deficit spending is when purchases exceed income. It is usually attributed to government spending within an economy. Although it can happen to both individual and business, when government spends more and not able to balance the budget, we say it is deficit spending. Deficit spending is created each fiscal year by congress and government because the spending by government causes the growth of the economy. For example, in the United State deficit spending is mainly caused by social, security, and medical cost. Government spends most of its revenue in each fiscal year into this payment. According to Kimberly Amadeo(2017) he said “ most people don’t realize that wars create more deficit spending than the create recession. The war in Afghanistan cost $28.7 billion in 2001.The war in Iraq for deployed military costs $72.5 billion by 2003. In 2008, the total cost grew to $186.6 billion.