[ExI] U.S. Federal Budget (was Tax Man)

[Lee Corbin]

On the subject of taxes and all, I found a pie chart of a modern socialist state's total spending budget:

http://www.concordcoalition.org/issues/fedbudget/fedbudget-spending-income-chart.htm

Here are the payouts in billions of dollars:

Social Security                545       
Defence                           520      
Medicare and Medicaid    505        
Discretionary                    322        
Interest                             227        
Income Security                200        
Other Entitlements             162        
Education                          93          
Environment                      52         
International Affairs           30         

Oddly, I am far less outraged by the same data expressed in percentages:

Social Security                        20%
Defence                                  20%
Medicare and Medicaid           19%
Discretionary                           12%
Interest                                    9%
Income Security                       7%
Other Entitlements                    6%
Education                                  4%
Environment                              2%
International Affairs                   1%

I would gradually eliminate all of

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Interest, "Income Security"
(evidently to deal with the aberration of being out of a job)
Other Entitlements, Education, and Environment, and I'd cut the
Defence and Discretionary (gradually) by about half.  When I got through
all I would have left is:

Defence                     250
Discretionary             160
International Affairs      30

And as for departments, certainly gone would be all the ones that begin
with the letters "E" and "A".  Isn't it strange that no one you or I know
at *all* favors agriculture and tobacco subsidies?

Lee