What Americans Spend Their Money On

When looking at the budget fights the Americans are currently embroiled in, it's important to ignore the spin from both sides and remember what it is they spend their money on. If ever there was a case to be made that the Military Industrial Complex has taken over and has far too much influence on American policy both foreign and domestic, it's contained in the numbers below which were put together by the non-partisan National Priorities Project. As you can see, there's 5% for health, 4% for education, 6% for environment, energy and science and other piddling percentages for things that should be considered important but so far as discretionary spending goes they spend the bulk of it on their military.

A stunning 58% of US discretionary budget spending goes to fuel the war-machine at a time when 59 million Americans have no health insurance, 132 million are without any dental insurance, their social programs are being cut to the bone and there's even talk of ending social security as they know it.

The icing on this cake is for all the talk there is from the Republicans about cutting programs and reducing spending, none of them wants to sit on the Appropriations Committee which controls all discretionary spending because none of them has the balls to actually cut the popular programs they're always calling for an end to because it would likely cost them their seat in the next election.