Chart of the Week: Federal Spending on Defense vs. Entitlements

The Foundry (Heritage Foundation) ^ | 08/22/2011 | Abigail White

[SeekAndFind]

Providing for the defense of the United States is Congress’ constitutional obligation. Lawmakers should recognize defense is a necessity, if not the federal government’s most important responsibility.

In recent years, however, defense spending has continued to decline as entitlement spending increased. Priorities are being misplaced as the gap between entitlement spending and defense spending continues to widen.

This chart is part of Heritage’s 2011 Budget Chart Book, featuring infographics on federal spending, revenue, debt and deficits, and entitlement programs.

[Jane Long]

Great. Bamster’s army of takers :(

[tired&retired]

A few months ago my wife's paycheck for working at a VA Hospital was switched from Dept of Vet's Affairs to now coming from Dept. of Defense. She didn't change anything.

Is this O’Bummer switching costs to the Defense budget to make it appear he cut it less?

[Wuli]

ping

[WOSG]

Is this O’Bummer switching costs to the Defense budget to make it appear he cut it less?”

Possibly. Obama also moved discretionary college aid into ‘mandatory’ to make it look like domestic discretionary spending wasnt zooming as much as it was.

Nobody in the history of the world has spent more money that we didnt have than Obama. $5 trillion in debt in 3 short years.

[exDemMom]

There remains a persistent liberal belief that if only we would take defense money and spend it on social programs instead, we’d have utopia.

It doesn’t matter how much we spend on entitlements; as long as any money is spent on defense, in their minds, we’re preventing ourselves from reaching utopia.

[rdcbn]

Wow, we have just finally reached the level of military spending we had under Jimmy Carter

[TheWriterTX]

Not necessarily. This chart represents % of GDP.

[justa-hairyape]

Maxine Waters and a stupid cry for a Peace Dividend broke the US ! We should have been solidifying the Social Security Trust Fund, Maxine.

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

Note that republicans increased defense spending after 9/11 but leveled it out at 4% of GDP by 2006. When democrats took congress on 2007, they increased it to 5% of GDP. Meanwhile entitlement spending has increased from just over 8% to 10% in that same time.

These people have no sense of choosing one or the other. They’ve been spending more money on anything and everything.