US Federal Budget Scale

Discussions focus on putting specific US federal expenditures into perspective by comparing them to the total federal budget, major department budgets, or revenue, often with links to Wikipedia infographics and official sources.

➡️ Stable 1.1x Politics & Society
2,958
Comments
19
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#1010
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2008
4
2009
30
2010
82
2011
58
2012
95
2013
131
2014
92
2015
106
2016
167
2017
205
2018
173
2019
194
2020
268
2021
196
2022
211
2023
245
2024
214
2025
477
2026
10

Keywords

US treasury.gov whitehouse.gov senate.gov index.php DARPA GDP NASA IMO nationalpriorities.org budget federal department billion trillion spending dollars gdp government nasa

Sample Comments

ssalazar Feb 4, 2025 View on HN

You dont have to imagine! Thats less than a sixth of a percent of the entire US federal budget :)

tibyat Feb 21, 2018 View on HN

what’s insane is that you just rounded off an amount roughly equal to the combined budget of:- department of energy ($24B)- department of education ($45B)- department of transportation ($73B)https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_execut...

JoachimSchipper Mar 19, 2012 View on HN

Wikipedia says 0.53% of the Federal budget.

swarnie_ May 2, 2019 View on HN

I just looked up the 2018 federal budget for examples:Department of Defense : $574 billionDepartment of Veteran Affairs :$78.9 billionDepartment of Education : $68.2 billionDepartment of Health and Human Services :$65.1 billionEnvironmental Protection Agency: $5.7 billionDoes this not seem off to you?

impulser_ Dec 8, 2023 View on HN

We are talking about 8.2 billion dollars from a 6.5 trillion dollar budget. The US brings in 5 trillion dollars in revenue yearly.This is like someone making 100k a year complaining about spending 16 cents on something because they have a loan to pay off.

hash872 May 5, 2020 View on HN

If this helps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#M...

MattGaiser May 5, 2020 View on HN

Here you go.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_Sta...

TheOtherHobbes Jun 20, 2020 View on HN

The US military budget is nearly $700bn annually, and NASA's budget is $22.6bn.For the US government, $300M is pocket money. It's unbelievably negligent not to spend a relatively tiny sum which could avoid total collapse.It's like owning a very grand house and not paying a few hundred dollars for insurance.

Better link.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_Sta...

jayess Apr 19, 2019 View on HN

~16%: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud...