I like how he slipped in "national security" at the tail-end of his spotlight on Medicare and Social Security.

National security is the real money. That's where the vast majority of our budget goes.

If we want to make legit cuts, we should reduce our tax dollars for no-bid contracts to military industries and contractors like KBR, Halliburton, etc.

Yeah, no shit - "national security" should get its own category.

Until the nat sec budget gets cut, I hate the government.

According to this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending… the DOD gets 18.74% of the budget. Hardly seems like a "vast majority".

Yay! Wikipedia mastah!

Sorry, El Barferino. "National security" covers a lot more than just the DOD. Anyone regurging that number sets off the red warning light on the rube-o-meter.

Underneath the vast umbrella known as national security you'll also find things like Homeland Security. And the VA. Plus about half of DOE what with the nukes and such. Also a big slab of NASA. Then you've a chunk of "Other Mandatory Programs," NSF, Labor, CIA, NSA, State, some DOT, underestimates for our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, etc, etc.

Also, the Federal budget misleads by including Social Security which is a trust fund rather than an entity funded by income taxes. This technique of including Social Security began with the Vietnam war to make national security spending seem smaller as a percentage.

And with all this crazed spending, we incur a lot of debt. See, national security is different than, say, Department of the Interior which makes money for the American people. National security costs us money. (Wait. George W. Bush lied when he told us Iraq would pay for itself?! Sob!)

Now you've got to take into account our interest on this spending. It ain't just your shopping trips to Walmart and Costco that puts us more under the thumb of China. It's also all the dough we borrow to pay for national security industries.

At the end of the day, somewhere between 45% to a little over 50% of our tax dollars go to "national security." Compared to any other Federal account, this is a "vast majority" indeed.

I was feeling too lazy to write what you did Buckinghamgreen. Thank you, well done!!!