Informative Speech : Discretionary Spending

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

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

Government spending in the United States needs to change and it needs to change soon. As mentioned earlier, in 2012 nearly a third of governments budget

Budgeting is perhaps the most essential process involved in the United States government. While this process seems to exist only in the background, it is, in reality, what allows all other processes of government to function as they do. In order to satisfy the most necessities of modern society, changes must be made to each of the three major categories of the budget: the big five, the middle five, and the little guys.

“To budget is to fight over money and the things money buys” (Document A). The federal budget is adjusted every year and has to follow certain criteria set forward by the Preamble to the Constitution. The Preamble sets five goals that the budget must fulfill, these goals are: to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for the common defence, to promote the general welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our prosperity. Furthermore, it is difficult to decide what clusters of the federal budget to allocate money to in order to meet the five goals of the Preamble which are “The Big Five”, “The Middle Five”, and “The Little Guys.” In each of the three budget clusters,

For Science and Technology: $10 billion for new scientific facilities (increase) and $6 billion to improve internet access in rural areas (Increase). For the Infrastructure: it included $30 billion for highways (Increase), $31 billion to modernize federal buildings and infrastructure(Stimulate) , $19 billion for clean water (Stimulate), and other environmental investments, and $10 billion to improve public transit and rail infrastructure(Stimulate) . For Education: $41 billion for local school districts(Increase) , $79 billion to maintain schools (Stimulate) , $15.6 billion to broaden the federal Pell Grant program (need based grants to fund education)(Increase), and $6 billion to modernize higher education programs(Stimulate). For Health Care: $87 billion for Medicaid (Increase), $20 billion to improve technology in the medical field (Increase), and $4 billion to improve preventative care (increase). The plan also includes $140 billion directed towards tax cuts of $500 per worker or $1,000 per family over two years, expand tax credits for working poor with children, and a $2,500 college tuition credit. All of this is a part of the G in the C+I+G+Xn, GDP Formula. Gsavings= Taxes -Gov’t Spending-Xn (Exports – Imports). The Treasury’s $700 Billion in TARP funds, which were originally aimed at stabilizing the financial sector, should be used to provide relief to other industries and “for things that look more like stimulus and less like asset purchases.” Some of the things that this includes is: Automatic economic stabilizers like the extension of unemployment insurance, the expansion of health insurance, Mortgage relief for those American’s facing default, the federal reserve’s purchase of mortgage-backed securities and other types of securities in need in the future, and an

Any person struggling through difficult times will seek out other means of financial support including borrowing money that may be harder to pay back in the future. The United States will often follow a similar path and spend more money than it earns. Deficit spending in the United States comes with some advantages, disadvantages, and strong criticism. Some feel deficit spending is good for getting the economy back in motion while others contend it does nothing for the economy. The effects of deficit spending are carefully examined to determine if the United States is improving or degrading the future of the economy.

Spending and Revenue are divided into ten categories, such as Investments, General Government, etc. Choose three spending categories and one revenue category to write about. What decisions to spend or cut did you make in each of the categories that you chose? Explain your choices. Be sure to read the pro/con arguments for each decision. Which arguments did you find most convincing?

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

President Obama’s 2016 $4 trillion budget includes $400 billion savings over a span of 10 years; by cutting funds from Medicare, Medicaid and other programs in order to offset the country’s $1.8 trillion

The federal government and states each have budgets that outline the amount of money that will be collected from taxes, how much will be spent in revenues, and what programs will receive money allocated to them from these expenditures. Every fiscal year, the federal budget and state budgets are reset so that they start from October 1st until the end of September of the following year. The federal government’s budget contains allocations for health care, pensions, education, defense, and welfare. The State of Colorado’s budget contains expenditures allocated to education, health care, pensions, protection, transport, and welfare (Chantrill, 2015). The

During that year the new federal spending for healthcare was around 24 billion to cover children healthcare over a period of five years. Over the next ten years there was about 40 billions to expand over the next five years.

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].

Another point discussed by Dr. Williams is the listing of statistics of government spending. He states that $500

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.