We don’t even know where our tax money is going.
The military is only 3% of our gdp. People act like it’s half out budget. It isn’t.
First, GDP is a dumb metric to use and doesn’t actually matter when talking about government spending.
And second, for 2015, the US government chose to spend 54% of our discretionary budget on the military. It’s 16% of our overall 2015 budget (which includes discretionary and mandatory spending), but social security, Medicare, and Medicaid (all part of mandatory spending) essentially run on auto pilot as far as spending goes (because it’s determined by how many people are eligible to receive the benefits).
So when Congress is determining where to send government money, they’re choosing to allot 54% of the budget they’re able to change to the military.
So the two total budget for the US in 2022 was 6.12 trillion. And the budget for the DOD was about 800 billion. So almost sixth of the budget was spent on the DOD. And that’s just the budget, things like wars don’t count against it so we likely spend way more than that on the military
My point being that US tax dollars were spent to destabilize central and south american nations, causing an influx of illegal immigration and asylum seekers, which people are furious about. They don’t want one dollar of tax money to house or feed people desperate for a better future for their families, which ok, Americans have their individual priorities and opinions and thats valid I guess.
But meanwhile the Pentagon is buying $1200 coffee cups, $600 toilet seats, the list goes on and on, check my facts here- the DoD bought a goddamn gas station in Afghanistan for 4 million dollars and people are like “oh well what are you going to do?”
Coffee cups don’t really cost 1200 dollars.
If you’re curious, look how government accounting works. It’s actually pretty interesting as it hides the cost of things.
What I’m curious about is how people can be concerned about out of control welfare spending and constantly complaining about taxes while the DoD is bleeding money like a Russian princess, and nobody seems to mind.
Edit: well there you have it folks: ask a straight question, no actual answer. The military can piss money into the ocean for all anyone cares, but fuck Americans in need of assistance. They want to spend 5 million to build a new golf course at Andrews AFB (which already has 2) and it’s yawns all around but the minute a trans person wants to take a leak in peace it’s call the papers and wake the neighbors.
I’m not even making the argument “well how can you spend money on bombs when Americans are going hungry”. I’m asking why doesn’t anybody care about this particular waste. It’s because nobody cares about this. I suspect the real answer is that as long as black and brown people don’t benefit, gubment waste is perfectly fine. God bless America.