How the Government Spends $1.1 trillion

As one of the dutiful American citizens that pay taxes, I have always wondered how the Government spends our money. In an article called, How Congress divides $1.1 trillion in spending, by Associated Press; it breaks down how much money is spent on each government agency operations. The House has just approved the division of the $1.1 trillion for federal agencies for the year. It is now waiting for the Senate approval and expected for President Obama to sign later on this week.

According to Associated Press, the $1.1 is $30 billion less than what Congress had provided last year but $20 billion more than was provided after automatic spending cuts after taking legal possession of assets until the debt has been paid off or the other claims have been met for 2013. The government spends a whopping $92 billon on war for US military operations overseas, mostly in Afghanistan. Only $7 billion is used for disasters. This is $1 billion less for war and $44 less for disasters than last year. A majority of the $1.1 trillion goes towards defense by using $474 billion a year. It also includes a 1% pay raise for President Obama. Cuts and maintenance for research and development programs is $160 billion. They used $157 million for Sexual Assault and Prevention office. Some of the spending is helping Military retirees. The money is also going towards Obama’s health care law. $3.7 billion is going towards the Center for Medicare and Medicaid. The National Institutes of Health gets $29.9 billion for health care research. Other miscellaneous things include: abortion, transportation, domestic security, IRS, financial agencies, protection of the environment, education, flood insurance, food, agricultural, law enforcement, veterans, diplomacy and foreign aid, and the Congress operations.

$1.1 trillion is a massive amount of money that people can only dream up. It’s interesting how the government decides to spend it. One interesting thing that stood out to me about this article is how much the government uses our money to fund the wars overseas. They are willing to spend so much money on foreign affairs yet are not willing to put more money in the natural disaster fund here in United States. In my opinion, they should focus more on the internal problems in their own country before they focus on other people’s problems.  

Because I pay for taxes like every other citizen in the United States, the way the government spends the money is relevant to me. It’s amazing to see how much they spend on certain things. The break-down of the how the money is spent reflects the governments focus for the United States. It seems as though they are so focused on staying as one of the top players of the world that they pay little attention to their own citizens’ wants and needs.

I decided to blog on this because I feel as though everyone should know what the government spends our money on. We blindly pay taxes every paycheck, yet we don’t have a full understanding of where our money goes. With this chart, we are able to see what the government spends our money on. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/how-congress-divides-up-11-trillion-in-spending/2014/01/16/8b4fc4d8-7e83-11e3-97d3-b9925ce2c57b_story.html