For the sake of simplifying the pie chart, I took about ten departments with smaller budgets related to the workings of government and lumped them into "Internal Affairs". Anything with a significant budget though was left with it's own label.
I simplified things further with a second pie chart that lumps all military spending together, with another segment for Health Care/Social Security:
I was surprised at how massive Welfare ends up being compared to the rest of the budget. Our "Defense" spending is also huge. Without the wars added in though, it's actually less than either Health Care or Social Security. Service members are getting a lot of benefits through the VA program, a much greater dollar for dollar proportion of welfare services than the rest of the population.
I haven't really had a chance to consider this very carefully, but the massive cost of Health Care and Social Security is more than a little disheartening. Is this the baseline from which we can expect higher costs in the future? Or have we reached some theoretical peak in that kind of spending? Because otherwise, it's very easy to see how these welfare programs could eat up the entire country's budget.
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