I have taken the Treasury monthly reports for the past few years and asked where is the money going? It is interesting to do the following calculation.
1. Lay out the outlays for a few years. Remember inflation has not been that great.
2. Select a baseline year, I chose 2006.
3. Then by Department or expense line calculate the increase each year from the baseline.
4. Then sort from largest to smallest and plot. That is the above.
The conclusion:
1. Homeland Security has gone up almost $400 billion annually since 2006. The question is what has happened? The border has not used up much, they cut back on New York, so what are they spending money on!
2. DoD still sucked up $250 billion more than in 2006. Again what's up? The same wars, in fact we are winding down in Iraq. Why should it have exploded as well?
3. Ooops, HHS is up $350 billion! What is that, it exceeds any Medicaid costs.
4. Social Security is up $250 billion and it is 26% in five years, not really too bad but it makes one wonder.
Labor is up $200 billion, must be unemployment insurance, but remember we all paid into unemployment insurance, it is taken out of your pay and should pay for itself from the fund. So where is the fund?
Why is Agriculture increasing, and HUD, is that a loss in loans? And on and on. It would be nice if they could explain this. You see my prior calculation on unemployment said we were not getting just a small amount. The problem is the current administration has exploded spending. So we are down $200 billion in receipts but up $900 billion in expenses. Has anyone ever thought to cut back?
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