[quote=permabear][quote=AN]Pensions $747.1 5.7
Health Care $783.8 6.0
Education $900.8 6.9
Defense $622.2 4.8
Welfare $411.4 3.2
Interest $312.3 2.4[/quote]
Those figures are somewhat deceiving. The defense budget doesn’t count spending that is under Homeland Security or the State Department or black ops. Several reports have found that billions of our defense budget is now off-books or hidden in other departments. Here’s a conservative estimate:
[quote=Mother Jones]But the real number is even higher, because, among other things, the OMB doesn’t count supplemental spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve combed through this year’s budget documents to add up military-related spending throughout the entire government…. The total: $780.4 billion[/quote]
You debate the exact numbers but number make two things very clear:
1) If interest rate only go up by a factor of 4 (not unrealistic given how low they are now), we are completely screwed.
2) You can’t cut 40% of spending (required to balance the budget) solely in defense or any other single category. It will take massive cuts in everything.
