Oct 9, 2015 ... A few more thoughts on the view from 1957. Relative to the size of the U.S.  economy (which is to say, as a share of GDP) we have cut military spending to  barely a third of what it was in 1957, from 9.8 percent of GDP then to 3.3 percent  of GDP now. Even though we were spending three times as much on ...
Apr 4, 2017 ... Another $604 billion, or 15.3% of total spending, went for national defense; net  interest payments on government debt was about $240 billion, or 6.1%.  Education aid and related social services were about $114 billion, or less than 3 % of all federal spending. Everything else – crop subsidies, space travel, ...
Oct 4, 2017 ... In fiscal year 2016, the federal government spent $3.9 trillion, amounting to 21  percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). Of that $3.9 ... We based  our estimates of spending in fiscal year 2016 on the most recent historical data  released by the Office of Management and Budget. (Federal fiscal ...
Jan 28, 2013 ... That's neither right nor wrong — it's a policy choice, after all — but as Americans  debate the nation's path and priorities, it's best to do so armed with facts about  the current state of affairs: what we're spending on the young, the old, the debt  service and defense, among others. Ultimately, what is the role of ...
The second perverse effect: The more we spend on entitlements and debt service , the less there is to spend on investments in the future. When people talk of  cutting nondefense “discretionary spending” – i.e., everything that government  does other than support the big entitlement programs and defense – they're  talking ...
We spend three times more on entitlements and debt services than we do on defense.