America the Great!

[carver]

Our Government spends money like there is no tomorrow! But think about it for a moment, and you realize that they, the leaders of this Country, are a reflection of the people they represent! Sure the Government spends money like it's going out of style. Sure the Government Officials borrow more money than they have the means to pay back. But both of these are a reflection of the people they represent! Only in America will you find so many people willing to pay $200,000 + for a home. Only in America will you find so many people willing to pay $60,000 for a car. Would you believe me if I told you that the personal indebtedness of the American People is almost the same as the indebtedness of the Federal Government? Well, it is! $16 trillion in debt by the Government, and another $15 trillion in personal indebtedness by the American People. But it's only money! $10 million to a football player? $8 million to a basketball player? You think about the $30 trillion of indebtedness that we have acumulated. What we will spend on things that don't matter, and you can see why it's OK for us to spend $30 billion per year on welfare. President Obama's Federal budget allocates $3.552 trillion to the various areas of government spending. This will create $1.17 trillion in deficit, since the Federal government only collected $2.38 trillion in taxes.

Whenever you see a pie graph that is meant to represent all government spending. You will probably see a graph like the one at US Government Spending or the one at Wikipedia which shows that “Welfare” spending is 12% of the federal budget. The problem with that is that the government has no spending category called “Welfare”. Therefore, what somebody calls “Welfare” is somewhat subjective and undefinable.

The Office of Management and Budget(OMB) does have a spending category called “Income Security”, and that accounts for about 12% of the total budget. In 2009 accounts categorized as “income security” accounted for 533$ billion in spending. According to the government printing offices’ historical tables, table 3.2: Oulays by Function and Subfunction, that spending is broken down into 6 distinct subfunctions.
1.General retirement and disability insurance
2.Federal employee retirement and disability
3.Unemployment compensation
4.Housing assistance
5.Food and nutrition assistance
6.Other income security