Hi Folks I often have my students "google" the "federal budget" and ask them to look over the expenditures. The federal budget is public domain. When we do, we find that the budget primarily lists discretionary spending items. The budget usually has summary tables that list expenditures over the previous 5-10 years. In these, you can see that usually, about 15-20% of the discretionary spending in the federal budget is allocated to the department of defense. This DOES NOT include the routine supplemental budgets presidents send to Congress for specific projects (like Iraq and Afghanistan). If supplemental budgets were added, my "guess" is the expenditures would approach 20-25%. But that is just a guess.
In addition, a large chunck of change in the federal budget is what would be considered "non-discretionary spending:" things the president does not control. I do not know what that goes toward, nor what proportion of the full U.S. budget is non-discretionary. But if Clinton suggests about 30% of the budget goes toward military expenditures (i.e., direct and indirect spending), he would probably have a good understanding of expenditures, and so I would believe him. As to the notion of increasing our federal expenditures on "International Aid" programs six fold (e.g., from 0.1% to 0.7%), I am sure a sixfold increase would make some sort of difference. On the other hand, I like to suggest that if we were to take about half of the expenditures on the Military for one year, and simply commit those $200 billion toward poverty in the U.S., I bet it would not hurt either. Peace to all, Robert Robert J. Hironimus-Wendt, Ph.D. Sociology and Anthropology Morgan Hall 421 1 University Circle Macomb, IL 61455-1390 phone: (309) 298-1457 fax: (309) 298-1857 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can." -- John Wesley --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Teaching Sociology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/teachsoc -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
