When the need to slash the military is raised, Republicans typically counter that their beloved Department of Defense is a small-ticket item. Blame Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
He who admits half the truth is still a wholesale liar. The DOD is a budgetary killer.
Each day during the month of November, the government brought in a little more than $5 billion of revenue. That’s a lot of money – but the U.S. government spent in that time more than $11 billion a day. The difference is roughly $6 billion.
Of that $11 billion, the top items were as follows: The Department of Health and Human Services, which goes through roughly $3 billion a day; Social Security, which shells out roughly $2.5 billion a day; the Department of Defense, which runs a $1.8 billion daily tab; and interest on the debt, which eats up $854 million every day.
UPDATE (19/12/012): Finally, Republicans, and a couple of Democrats and their anointed experts, are framing all budget proposals out there as they should—and as these worse-than-useless efforts are habitually framed by libertarians (led by Ron Paul): “cuts to designated increases in spending.”
Bret Baier (archived here) has been tackling the structure of the debt:
At last check, it was approaching $16.4 trillion. Just four years ago, it was $10.6 trillion.
The skyrocketing number is, to say the least, reason for concern for every American.
Here’s why:
As of today, every household in the United States owes about $140,000 of this debt.
The country is borrowing roughly $6 billion every day, and $239 million every hour. Put another way, that’s $4 million every minute.
The country runs up so much debt for a fairly basic reason — it spends far more than it takes in. This year, for every dollar in revenue the federal government brought in, it spent two dollars and six cents. That shortfall over the course of the year adds up to the annual deficit. The national debt — or total accumulated debt — is the sum of all annual deficits, minus any surpluses. …