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Fielding the Federal Budget

By Sarah Stodola

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Talk of the federal budget never ceases, ever. They're either working out a deficit, or less often boasting of a surplus, or wrangling over a military spending proposal, or an education spending cutback. For such an omnipresent topic, it is strangely lacking in tangible form. I became curious to actually see the budget a few days ago, when all of this talk of dollars in the billions and trillions caused me to lose my sense of what a dollar means at all. I decided to look at the budget so I could see these dollar amounts as percentages instead, in order to see how much is being spent on homeland security, for example, as a percentage of the entire federal budget.

(Here is the link to the budget, courtesy of the White House.)

What I have subsequently learned is that there is no such thing as viewing the federal budget in its entirety. Instead, there is a document that was clearly drafted by politicians; it's one of the most long-winded, vague, desultory things I've ever come across, much like a White House press conference.

The budget is available online, just like everything else these days. It opens with a message from President Bush, who states right up front that this year's budget concentrates on three principle goals: "winning the war against terrorism, securing the homeland, and generating long-term economic growth." (It's funny that he would say this so blatantly, since it is strikingly clear that he has come close to achieving exactly zero of these goals.) These are seemingly straightforward goals. But this is a big, complicated country. Anything that sounds so simple is something that warrants a fair amount of suspicion.

My first step in deciphering the 2004 Budget was to find the total budget amount. You'd think this would be a good starting point for the government, as well. But this figure is not listed until the 31st section of the budget, out of 32 sections; the 32nd being the glossary of terms. Regardless, they are there, and if you look hard enough you can find them. Which I guess is good enough, technically speaking.

So, the total 2004 federal budget is as follows, according to Table S-1:

-The country plans to take in $1,922 billion dollars, or $1.922 trillion.

-It plans to spend $2,011 billion dollars.

-That creates a projected deficit of $158 billion (more on that later).

The drafters of the budget call this “receipts and outlays.” Maybe they learned these terms in Accounting 101, maybe they came up with it off the cuff; I can’t remember, I took Accounting 101 eight years ago and haven’t thought about it since. Anyway, there are now a lot of billions of dollars to allocate. Let’s take a look at the breakdown, shall we?

Outlays, or spending, is broken down into two basic categories: Discretionary and Mandatory. Discretionary outlays are further broken down into two more categories: Defense and Nondefense. I find it humorous that the government can keep a straight face when it lists defense as discretionary, given that defense seems to be one of the only things it considers mandatory of late. But it does, and it allocates $390 billion to its cause. Nondefense gets $429 billion.

The Mandatory subcategories are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP (they don’t tell you what SCHIP is, and I can’t say that I know), and Other, receiving $493 billion, $255 billion, $185 billion, and $301 billion, respectively.

Including Net Interest, the Total Outlays are now $2,229 billion, and Total Receipts are $1,922 billion, for a Deficit of $307 billion. These are completely different numbers than those that were initially given. In fact, the deficit here is nearly double the original projection.

Further down, an entire table is devoted to the breakdown of Discretionary Spending. From Table S-4 we learn the Homeland Security is Non-Defense, which would be ironic if it were true. But since Homeland Security is really just a synonym for Defending Our Country, one starts to wonder just how the drafters came up with these categories, anyway. Homeland Security is the most mandatory kind of defense there is. Just because it now has its own department doesn’t change any of this. In fact, this status should make it less discretionary and more defensive, if anything.

But moving on; The Department of Homeland Security is allocated only $28 billion in 2004. The Department of Defense (which used to be the War Department, remember - “defense” is becoming a very confusing word, indeed) is allocated $380 billion. In terms of percentages, which was the original goal of this inquiry, Homeland Security will receive just under 1.3% of the total budget. Defense, on the other hand, will receive 17%. These statistics certainly seem to imply an imperialistic agenda on the part of the United States, despite claims to the contrary by the Bush administration.

Table S-5 makes things even more confusing. It provides a summary of Homeland Security spending by department. Even though there is a Department of Homeland Security, it is not solely responsible for spending on homeland security. Granted, it provides the biggest chunk of money to the cause, but all of the other departments are required to contribute millions or in some cases trillions, as well. Very strange. What this in effect means is the Department of Education, for example, does not have as much money as its budget total would imply, because it is helping pay for homeland security.

The fact remains, however that armed with the total budget numbers, one can now calculate just how much importance the government has placed on certain issues. As has already been stated, Defense accounts for 17% of the total budget. Education accounts for less than 1% of the entire budget. The largest recipient, in addition to Defense, is Social Security, by a long shot. From what I can tell, nothing else even reaches the 5% mark.

I don’t want to draw any conclusions here, I’d rather let the numbers speak for themselves. But placing these bafflingly large dollar amounts in percentages certainly does help contextualize them. It really makes you feel like you, personally, contributed to the war in Iraq, you know? I’m going emigrate now.

There went my objectivity.

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Random notes:

There is also a table which lists the sources of receipts. Income taxes on individuals will bring in $1.175 trillion. Income taxes on corporations will bring in $243 billion. Seems a little uneven, right?

Social Security receives more government funding than Defense. That’s really interesting. No wonder the right wing is trying to privatize it.

One of the sections is titled: “For Everyone Willing to Work, a Job.” Please. The subtext there is such an insult to the unemployed; it’s implying that if only the country’s poor would be willing to earn their keep everything would be fine. What a pompous, arrogant, spoiled rich boy thing to say. If words could make me physically ill, these ones would do it.

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Sarah Stodola is the Managing Editor of Me Three.  She can be contacted at [email protected].

© 2003 Me Three