The numbers used in this movie are very inaccurate. For example, military spending is actually only about 3.2 to 3.3% of GDP (the only meaningful way to represent this information), depending on where you look. Many organizations report this number, but the main source most go to is the CIA fact book (Google it).

It's also misleading to report the 3.6 number for education too, because most education funding comes from the states in the US. It's not a federal obligation. There are good reasons for this but that topic is perhaps too large for this venue.

Posted on April 17, 2007 — by JessicaT

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Forgive me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the percentage of the Federal Budget be a better representation of government spending than the GDP? (Considering the GDP represents all transactions and values in the country, not just those pertaining to tax.)

Posted on May 14, 2007 — by boxedmongoose

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Cute, fun way to show how the feds spend our money.

I agree with JessicaT that in general the best way to talk about budgetary spending is to compare it to GDP, but the point of this video is not to talk about total spending - rather to talk about relative spending of different budgetary priorities (eg. education vs. military spending). Toward that end, it doesn't really matter which percentages you use. (Worth noting: JessicaT's point on education spending is spot on - federal spending on education only accounts for about 10% of public education).

What is really missing from these stats and so is somewhat misleading, however, is that they only cover "discretionary" spending - that is how much Congress votes to spend on each year - and leave out "mandatory" spending, which accounts for over 50% of federal spending and which almost all goes to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If you look at total spending, health care gets bumped up to 25% and military spending goes down to about 20%.

Posted on June 5, 2007 — by jkamin

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