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Comment by rb808 | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure if you're in America, but in the US it federal income taxes largely goes to 14 giant aircraft carriers, a huge network of nuclear weapons, corporate farmers intensely growing carbs that makes our nation fat and payoffs to various politically well-connected lobby groups. State and local taxes probably are more useful for the things you think benefit society. Social Security and Medicare are of course funded separately. There is nothing for the endless army of homeless people living on the streets.

I know in many countries people are happy to pay taxes, if I saw everyone was treated well, got free healthcare and free universities I'd probably be happier about paying tax too.

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> largely goes to 14 giant aircraft carriers

How much do you think the Navy actually costs? Crunching the numbers, the tax the corporation I work at (admittedly, not a small company) is by itself sufficient to pay for running one of those carriers.

The Department of Defense's budget is about Six Hundred and Fifty Billion Dollars. It appears too high for peace time. We have friendly relations with both neighboring states. We have huge natural defenses (oceans) to the east and west. We have the nuclear deterrent. We have a well armed population.

We don't need 355 deployable navy vessels. Improving education and health care of our citizens would do more to improve America's economic position than jostling for terrority in the Indian Ocean. Climate change is a bigger treat than terrorism.

If you're in the US, federal dollars overwhelmingly go to Medicare and Social Security; the United States is a health insurance and HR benefits provider that happens to have an army.

Roughly speaking, 25% of spending goes to the military, 25% to SS/Medicare, and the other 50% to everything else.

It is important to note that the 25% for SS/MC is funded by a separate tax, targeted to those programs. Without getting sidetracked over budget unification, it is equally important to note that this separate tax has generated a surplus for decades, and has therefore been used to subsidize the rest of the budget.

27% of federal spending in 2015 was Medicare, 33% was social insurance (social security, SSDI, and unemployment), 15% was military.

The United States Federal Government is a heavily armed HR benefits company.

These numbers seem very high to me! Do you have a source? Here's one sounding the alarm that medicare spending has gone as high as 14% of federal spending and may reach 20% in the next 25 years:

https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/budget-explainer-medicare

Edit: I think maybe you were reading a source describing "health care spending" including not only Medicare but also Medicaid, CHIP, health care for veterans, and possibly other categories of health expenditures. Which doesn't really take away from your point! TIL

Too late to edit my comment, but my numbers seem to be wrong, or at least out of date.

During the Bush years, military spending was in the 25% (or greater) range.

SS/MC was lower (as a percentage of the budget) than today, but it was closer to 33% than 25%.

See e.g. https://www.thebalance.com/fy-2007-u-s-federal-budget-and-sp... which has links to other years.

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