Reality Check – Federal Budget Literacy In Three Charts

Trump is supposed to lay out his budget priorities tonight when he addresses Congress. I anticipate that it will be short on details and more like a campaign speech, which is really the only kind of speech he is able to give.

More importantly, though, the American people are largely misinformed about the federal budget and federal spending. So, in a vain hope that Americans can be educated in this area, here it all is in three easy charts.

This is mandatory federal spending, in other words, basically entitlement spending:

Here is federal discretionary spending:

And here it all is in one chart:

There is a reason Paul Krugman calls the federal government a giant insurance company that also has a large military. Over 75% of the budget is devoted to the two giant social insurance programs, Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security, and funding for the military.