Instruction
Discussion: Is This What We Should Spend Our Money On?
Below is overall Federal spending in the USA in 2017
2017 Federal Spending.jpg
Below is only the "Discretionary" part of the Federal Budget proposal for 2018
2018 Discretionary Federal Budget Proposal.png
So you can see that in 2017 we spent 24 + 15 = 39% and growing of all US Federal expenditure on retired people only. In addition we spent 11 + 7 = 18% on poor or income insecure (unemployed) people. Finally, 15% of the entire budget in 2017, and almost 70% of the "non-Mandatory" spending (that is, parts of Federal spending that can be changed according to how we assign budget priorities) is spent on the US military. Another 7% and growing is spent on servicing the national debt. This means that 79% of all Federal spending -- nearly four-fifths -- is spent on retired people, the poor, the military and the debt.
Do you think these are the best priorities for US government spending? Do you propose some other set of priorities? If so, what? Please use outside sources to support your position.