Last year, the federal budget was $6.9 trillion
1. Mandatory Spending was $4.2 trillion or 61% of the total budget.
Of this, Social Security was $1.46 trillion or 21.2%
Medicare was $0.97 trillion or 14.1%
Medicaid was $0.60 trillion or 8.7%
Veterans’ Benefits was $0.32 trillion or 4.6%)
Other Mandatory spending was $0.85 trillion 12.3%
2. Discretionary Spending was $1.8 trillion or 26% of total budget
This was broken down by Defense which was $0.87 trillion 12.6% of total budget and 48% of discretionary
Non-Defense (e.g., education, transportation, housing) was $0.93 trillion or 13.5% of the budget and 52% of the discretionary
3. Net Interest on Debt was $0.88 trillion or 12.8% of total budget. I believe that this is the first time that interest has exceeded the defense budget.
In 2019, the federal budget was $4.45 trillion. That means that from 2019 to 2024, the federal government spending has increased by $2.45 trillion. That is about a 55% increase in just 5 years. If we just went back to 2019 spending, we could save a lot of money.
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