Today, President Bush announced his proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 - $3.1 Trillion (yes, $3,100,000,000,000.00) - which caused me to recall an insightful cartoon TrueMajority released a few years ago. Though the current budget proposal may have differences in the details, the general percentages still hold true - over 23% of the federal budget would go to defense and national security (that's over $713 Billion ($713,000,000,000.00)). This continues the Bush administration's trend of increasing defense and national security spending, while at the same time cutting spending on social welfare programs. Defense and national security spending is necessary, but so is providing quality education, healthcare, promoting a sustainable environment, etc. - without which, I ask, what exactly are we defending?! Somehow we, as a nation, seem to have little problem with racking up huge deficits to pay for defense and national security, yet we seem to swallow the rational that this justifies slashing social welfare programs left and right. We need to realign our priorities by recognizing that social welfare programs are just as important as defense and national security related programs and, as such, give them equal priority in our federal spending - rather than using increased defense and national security spending as an excuse to cut social welfare programs.
For a breakdown of where your tax dollars would be going, should this budget be approved, check out The Budget Graph's "Death and Taxes" poster.
