this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024

8 points (52.7% liked)

politics

19233 readers

2191 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News

• World News

• Business News

• Political Discussion

• Ask Politics

• Military News

• Global Politics

• Moderate Politics

• Progressive Politics

• UK Politics

• Canadian Politics

• Australian Politics

• New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

outrageousmatter@lemmy.world

aidan@lemmy.world

jordanlund@lemmy.world

HLMenckenFan@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

Military spending is up, social and economic funding is down since 2022 (hexbear.net)

submitted 5 months ago by UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

https://stephensemler.substack.com/p/military-spending-is-up-social-and

all 28 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 62 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

Hate to ruin your narrative here, but the [Republican controlled] House controls the government coin purse.

The first part's not true. I love to tear down narratives. So I'm going to dissect the last paragraph with prejudice.

Blame Republicans if you want

I do.

but save some for the president and congressional Democrats. Biden rebranded as a deficit hawk after the FY2022 budget process,

Makes sense given our massive deficit.

the FY2023 spending bill was passed under the Democratic trifecta, and the FY2024 appropriations bills were enacted with overwhelming Democratic support at Biden’s urging.

We're also funding two wars abroad, so that also makes sense. Also, those were the appropriations bills that needed to pass to prevent the government from shutting down. Because those are used every frigging year to hold the country for ransom, usually by Republicans. So of course compromises would be required to pass the least-worst of those lest we get absolutely nothing at all and the whole government shuts down (again).

We’ve got a bipartisan problem here.

BoTh SidES!!!1!!

[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This isn't both sides, this is straight anti-biden propaganda.

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Oh, yeah. 100%.

My "Both sides" rebuttal was simply to the last sentence in the ~~article's~~ blog post's summary paragraph.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago

but but but gEnOsiDe jOe!!/1

[–] Somethingcheezie@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

Social spending was also up in 21 and 22 because of Covid.

[–] Nawor3565@lemmy.blahaj.zone 35 points 5 months ago

Wow, military spending went up when a major world power invaded a sovereign nation? I'm sure this is all Biden's fault.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 29 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Hold the fuck up

This has got to be wrong

The IRA alone was a trillion dollars, roughly speaking, in new “social and economic spending”. Where is that on this chart?

I’m gonna do some digging and see what this is. My guess is that “social and economic spending” is cunningly defined as within certain existing programs, which took a back seat to the massive new programs which are not included, but let me see what I can find about it.

Edit: Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is 100% just made up numbers. Like literally just writing any random shit on the chart and bald faced lying that it's the actual numbers. He has citations, but they're all citations to other articles of his.

Here are the numbers:

Military spending is easy to measure, because it's a whole separate slice in the infographic. It went up, but not to where he says -- over those three years it went from $742B to $751B to $805B. His chart shows it climbing up way up to $900B.

Social spending is a little more complex, because it's not a single category in the same way, but you can literally add up things that are separated on the chart and see that even the sum of selected social/economic programs adds up to more than he says. I knew this was wrong because the scale of social spending, under Biden or before him, was so massive that you don't even have to get detailed to show why it's wrong.

2022: Student loan programs + income security + medicaid + medicare + social security = $3.6 trillion
2023: Income security + medicaid + medicare + social security = $3.3 trillion

He doesn't really break down what he means by "economic and social," so maybe he's using a definition that doesn't include social security or student loan forgiveness in social and economic spending or something, but given the fact that he lied about military spending I feel fairly comfortable saying that he probably just made up some random shit and posted up a chart full of Fox News style total lies.

[–] capital_sniff@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

For 900 billion we could buy nine Elon Musks or like six Putins.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 20 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The US spent 629 billion on Medicare alone in 2024.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/

Don't fall for falsified data.

[+] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (3 children)

This is discretionary spending

Edit: I have no idea why this is getting downvotes.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 18 points 5 months ago

Ah. That should probably be in the headline then, instead of just "spending" and "funding".

Regardless, the figures are still inaccurate.

The $1.6 trillion in discretionary spending for FY24 is split between $842 billion for defense programs and $758 billion for nondefense activities, reflecting respective 3% and 7% boosts from FY23 enacted levels.

https://about.bgov.com/brief/federal-appropriations-for-fy24/

[–] Ledivin@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Edit: I have no idea why this is getting downvotes.

Because you made it clear in this comment that the headline is biased by using incomplete terms and trying to hide what the actual spending was.

Remember that nobody uses votes as intended, and nobody will ever manage to change that.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Because making this distinction (apparently for no reason at all except that it provides a misleading way to present data that have nothing to do with the reality) is a bunch of bullshit.

If you had said “here is how this data is false and what is the real information” I think you would be getting upvotes

This may not be the intent on your part, but it kinda comes across like “oh this data isn’t a TOTAL bunch of bullshit, and here is a random arbitrary distinction underlying it which wasn’t mentioned which totally makes it make sense to present these numbers this way,” and my guess is you’re getting downvotes because if that were what you were saying, that would be simply doubling down on the dishonesty of the original chart, and people are downvoting it for dishonesty

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Because making this distinction (apparently for no reason at all except that it provides a misleading way to present data

Congress/the President don't pass budgetary acts to set non-discretionary spending. The income/costs are statuary, and so their changes aren't tied to the horse trading that routinely occurs as part of the appropriations process.

here is a random arbitrary distinction underlying it

The Appropriations Committee holds enormous influence over our national budgetary agenda precisely because they dictate how much money is made available to the various agencies. This isn't random or arbitrary, it is fundamental to how Congress functions under Article One of the US Constitution.

This is where the "GOTV WE NEED TO FIX THINGS" rhetoric rubber hits the fucking road. You're not going to change how Social Security or Medicare operates from cycle to cycle, but you absolutely are going to change how the Dep of Ed, the Highway and Transportation Administration, and the Pentagon function.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

What on earth are you talking about?

Setting aside the dishonesty of excluding medicare, medicaid, social security, and the big assistance programs that got passed recently from the "social / economic programs" line on a chart of government spending, yes of course congress / the president pass budgetary acts that set non-discretionary spending. That's how that spending got there in the first place. Where did you think medicare and medicaid and the student loan forgiveness programs and everything got into the non-discretionary budget in the first place, if not from congress and the president passing budgetary acts?

(This annoyed me so much that I went back and added a downvote to the pile for you)

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Setting aside the dishonesty

How is a discussion of discretionary spending changes dishonest? It's the thing Congress sets every two years.

congress / the president pass budgetary acts that set non-discretionary spending

That's not how the Social Security Trust or the Medicare Trust Fund work. You don't appropriate funds at the start of every budget cycle to pay for them.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Mm hm

What’s your explanation for the military budget thing?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Pentagon Spending is part of the Biannual NDAA, which falls under the purview of Appropriations.

[–] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 1 points 5 months ago

I mean, in terms of the differences between the numbers in this chart and the numbers from the CBO that I posted.

[–] Veedem@lemmy.world 19 points 5 months ago

Because of some of the COVID social programs, that chart should go back another 5 years, or so, to show a more accurate picture of the trend. I have no idea what it would look like, but my first thought is that 2022 is when the remaining COVID protections started being phased out which would, obviously, reduce the spending number. So, going back to 2019 and even 2018 would give us a better idea of the relative spend now versus then.

[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

This is a bad graph, it only shows 4 data points so it carries no context. Show it over 12 or 16 years otherwise the context is lost.

[–] Ledivin@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

Social and economic funding went down? It's almost as if the GOP obstructs all progress when a Dem administration is in power... anyone remember that infrastructure bill? Or student loan forgiveness? Or funding for abortion access?

[–] 2484345508@lemy.lol 3 points 5 months ago

Shame on you.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago

This chart is misleading. It just shows "discretionary" spending which leaves out Medicare Social Security, and Medicaid. (We spend considerably more on those programs than the entire military)

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io -2 points 5 months ago

Once evil strongmen Putin and Xi are out of power, we can hopefully ratchet that down.