Politicians..Listen Very Carefully

Last night was the last GOP debate to see which of the last men standing would be the GOP candidate. It has been just great fun to watch the crowd of candidates chew on each other. Not pretty, but fun for this Obama Democrat.

As a watcher of all things political I was pulled up short when Senator Santorum said that the Military budget was just 17% of the Total Federal Budget. After that he went on to minimize our amount of military spending to make it sound like it was no big deal. Wow, I thought seeing as how we spend more than all the other country's combined it really must not be that big a deal. And, all of us liberals should just go back to our corner and hush...its only 17%. But still, it just did not sound right to me.

In other words, as a percentage of the entire Federal budget he is sort of close. Military spending is really 20% as per Politifact but why quibble when arguing with a guy that is after all, a U.S. Senator. And, there is one other thing about his percentage. It doesn't include any money for the care of vets and their retirement which is not discretionary but is a result of sending our brave men and women all over the world. But, not quibbling, I'll move on.

Federal spending has two main parts; Discretionary...we get to make choices like Pell grants for college or money for the CDC , and Non -discretionary spending...entitlements like social security and interest on the debt. Big moves in the amount of our annual budget are made in the discretionary budget items. Its much easier to get re-elected when you dissappoint college kids than when you deny us old folks our Social Security.

As the esteemed Senator was making a big point about the insignificance of the money we spend on offense/defense he did not make a point to say;

" Just 33% of the budget is Discretionary. This is what is governed by the appropriations that are passed each year. It includes Military spending, which is two-thirds of the entire Discretionary budget. "
this I got from Ask.com...Federal Spending.

These politicians will bend and twist any statistic they can to make there point. But, Gosh Darn Senator talk about twisting the truth til it screams.
The senator just wanted to say that offensive/defensive spending is so small a percentage and we shouldn't worry about it and, I love this, we should increase or spending. After all , we only have 900+ bases around the world.