THIS Is Why We Occupy!: The 2012 Federal Discretionary Budget

[kpete]

WHY WE OCCUPY: VISUALIZING THE 2012 FEDERAL DISCRETIONARY BUDGET

//thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/visualizing.jpg

http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/11/28/376422/why-we-occupy-visualizing-federal-budget/

[Huey P. Long]

1. Occupado. -eom

[PETRUS]

2. K&R

[DJ13]

3. 1.34 trillion K&R's

[Zorra]

4. The US military is the global police force of the 1%.

And we are the milk cows that support this police agency for them.

[fascisthunter]

5. Powerful Graphic

powerful info there too..

thanks!

PS - social security should not be part of discretionary spending. It isn't....

[Dont call me Shirley]

6. 59% on war and war related costs, that's grotesque. Stop the war machine.

[Junkdrawer]

7. Yes, but when you add Social Security and Medicare....

You know, those things we pay for with a separate regressive tax, you can make the military budget seem really small.

And that's been the Conventional Wisdom for the last 50 years....

[Downwinder]

8. Conventional Wisdom -- oxymoron

L

[Bucky]

9. it's a little dishonest to lump Veterans' Affairs in with the military & DHS budget.

Vet Affairs is an assortment of health, jobs, and housing programs unrelated to military actions around the world.

[Junkdrawer]

10. So the Iraq War didn't increase the VA budget?

:shrug:

Joe Stiglitz disagrees....

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Trillion-Dollar-War-Conflict/dp/0393067017

[texshelters]

12. Exactly.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[texshelters]

11. Why?

Why is it dishonest? Can you reason this out for us? Wouldn't the budget be smaller without all the wars and warmongering?

So what percent should the Veterans' Affair occupy?

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[Bucky]

13. The VA budget is a consequence of having a military, not of warmongering.

The VA expenditures do not go to exporting wars. Most of the expenses they have are a result of having a military, whether they get sent off to war or not. It's a separate department of government specifically because it deals with a separate set of policy issues. Ending all the jingoism of the last quarter century would not have significantly reduced the operating expenses of the VA.

[texshelters]

14. And the budget is larger

due to the wars overseas and all the recruitment of troops for these wars.

Think about it.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[Robb]

20. Not borne out by the numbers.

[Angleae]

15. It's also more than a little dishonest to refer to the discretionary budget and ignore the rest

[TheKentuckian]

18. No less honest that lumping things we have separate funding for that isn't counted in the taxes

I'd say more so. A lot more.

Some things are both other distorted into both for other political purposes so it makes you have a point but the opposite results in a bigger lie than the one corrected.

[uponit7771]

16. That make me want to puke, seriously....while we suffer other play with toys

[bvar22]

17. Here is the obscene graphic :

You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
Solidarity99!
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[Robb]

19. This is why we fact-check.

Lumping in VA's $132 Billion is as silly as including the entirety of Homeland Security's budget as "military."

Or, did I miss the militarization of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service? And FEMA?