Where does "Defense Funding" go? With Pictures!

I keep running into people complaining about how much the United States government spends on the Military.. mainly on Facebook. Mainly these people back up their pitchforks with unsourced graphs with "defense spending by country" and fewer still have an explanation of what the numbers in the charts mean. Let's pick on the first graph I find when I search "military defense spending".

The graph I'm referring to is here: *found on random image site, link to SIPRS in sources. (7)

I wanted to explain this one for those who have trouble reading graphs (because they're harder to comprehend than most people think, and I'd bet a pinky nail that most of the people who wave these graphs around couldn't explain them if you asked them). However, it's come to my attention that numbers scare people and they wouldn't read that section if I wrote it anyway. So. Easier numbers then.

What does "46.5% of World Military Expenditures" mean in dollars? (Note, we will ignore all other economic factors for this article). According to USGovernmentSpending.com (which reports actual numbers from Federal expenditure reports (links in sources)(6), that 46.5% in 2009 was 805.0 billion dollars.

It's been shown that people don't comprehend numbers that large (4). So let's work with what we have. Let's call it 805 dollars and 00 cents. They spent 805.00 on "Defense". What really goes into the "defense" budget. Well...

$91.90 goes to veterans (remember, that's 91.9 billions). (Also note that this number goes up to 142 in 2010!) What goes into "Veterans"? Medical rehab, education, training, housing, income security (burial benefits, pensions, life insurance) accounts for $45.10. The other big chunk is medical care and veteran's hospitals, $39.50. This is regular medical care for people who were injured on military duty...  Purple Heart recipients, guys who got shot, blew up, or were significantly injured in training. (Is this where you want the budget cut?)

Defense spent $8.90 on foreign military aid.
$29.10 went to foreign economic aid, including humanitarian assistance, conduct of foreign affairs and information and exchange activities. (Remember, these are "dollars" for this article. It's like the Government spending $805 dollars a month, but $29.10 of it was a charity donation. How much did you give to Hurricane Sandy?)

What? Oh you didn't mean THOSE. You meant the "military defense" part of military defense budget. OK  $675.1. WHEW. A lot right? Let's break that down.

$5.70 went to "Defense related activities" including salaries and expenses, retirement funds, DOD Medicare, Maritime security, operating expenses (they need electricity too!) etc.

$18.20 went to Atomic energy defense activities. These are Energy employees salaries, nuclear waste disposal (0.20), environmental cleanup (5.40), Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation (detect, secure, dispose of surplus nuclear weapons and materials)(5) $1.70). $7.20 on weapons activities! (There, something for you to sink your teeth into.)

Wait! What about the other $651.2 dollars?
"Department of Defense -- Military (051)" has a LOT of subcategories, so I'll summarize best I can. The big expenditures here are
* 175.2 Operation and Maintenance, (Army, AF, MC, Navy, Reserves (all), Guard (Army and Air).
* 125.4 Personnel (pay, medicare contributions,
* 27.7 Operation and Maintenance, Defense-wide
* 26.0 Defense Health Program (active military hospitals).
* 20.8 Aircraft procurement for Navy, Army.
* 12.2 Shipbuilding and conversion for Navy.
* 78.6 Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation, All branches and defense wide.
* 39.2 Specifically on "Ammunition, Missile procurement" (5 of it missiles.) Remember, a LOT of that ammunition goes to training annually and in basic.

Phew. That's 460 billion. Sorry. Dollars. Really it goes on like this. The other 200 billion is cut up in 0.1-1.6 sized pieces throughout things like "family housing", "national defense sealift", "construction"... OH and 37.70 for the "Anticipated Funding for the Global War on Terror", cause everyone should save a little for the inevitable broken windshield.
It's just your average, everyday business expenses for employees, insurance, housing, company cars (huge ones), etc.

Anticipated Funding for the Global War on Terror 37.7

Summary table: Where Military Defense Money WENT in 2009!

• 91.90 Veterans.
• 8.90 Foreign military aid.
• 29.10 Foreign economic/humanitarian aid.
• 5.70 Defense sector salaries, medical, retirement, etc.
• 18.20 Atomic energy (Navy reactors, disposal, cleanup, medical). 
• 151.4 Soldier paychecks and hospitals.
• 78.6 R&D.
• 37.7 Funds for the anticipated war on terror.
• 32.0 Cool tanks and boats and jets! Oh, and crappy FLCs. 
• 202.9 Operation and maintenance in general (soldiers' gear, buildings, car parts, etc!)
• 7.20 Weapons activities.
• 39.2 Ammo (in war and training) and missiles ($5).

So, of the 805 billion dollars you think the Government is spending on sticking their red, white, and blue noses into other people's business maybe 100 of it is used to injure people (if you count all the ammo and vehicles).

Soldier getting deployed to Afghanistan - New York Times (12)

I'm not going to tell you that your opinion is wrong, but you NEED to be educated about your opinion one way or another. Next time you want to complain about what the government spends on "the military" either own up that you think they need to take money away from vets and soldier pay so they can still afford to keep soldiers geared up to protect us if needs be, or own up to being OK with a minimal military and compulsorily speaking German.



(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_members_of_the_United_Nations_Security_Council

(2) CO2 EMISSIONS FROM FUEL COMBUSTION Highlights (2011 Edition) - http://iea.org/co2highlights/co2highlights.pdf pp85. 

(3) Government Spending Details - United States Federal
State and Local Government Spending - Fiscal Year 2009 in $ billion. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2009USbn_09bs1n_303132_051#usgs302

(4) Chivers, Tom. "Millions and billions: why big numbers matter". Published October 18th, 2012. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100185515/millions-and-billions-why-big-numbers-matter/

(5) National Nuclear Security Administration.   http://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ourprograms/nonproliferation

(6) Government Spending Details - United States Federal
State and Local Government Spending - Fiscal Year 2009 in $ billion. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2009USbn_09bs1n_303132_051#usgs302

(7) Wikipedia - Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_International_Peace_Research_Institute

(8) Veteran's Image: Free meals to veterans give restaurants PR boost - http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/11/07/veterans-day-free-meals-freebies/1684021/

(9) US Aid Image: Welch, Emma. "Guest Post: The Case for U.S. Foreign Aid" - Posted 2012 Feb 14. http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2012/02/14/guest-post-the-case-for-u-s-foreign-aid/

(10) U.S. Army Environmental Command Image - Army Environmental @USAEC - https://twitter.com/USAEC

(11) Paybook Image - Browse Service Heroes - MyWarHistory.Com - http://mywarhistory.com/browse/browse.aspx?serviceHeroId=2

(12) "Soldier getting deployed to Afghanistan - New York Times (12)" - Soldiers at War By Holly Epstein Ojalvo - http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/soldiers-at-war/ 

All articles accessed 2012 Nov 15. Images used without permission. These images do not belong to me. If you reuse them please cite the original owner.