US Military Budget

The cluster revolves around debates on the size of the US military budget, its proportion relative to GDP, total federal spending, and comparisons to sectors like healthcare and education, with arguments both criticizing its scale and providing factual corrections.

➡️ Stable 0.5x Politics & Society
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20
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#3074
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Keywords

THERE NATO US USED treasury.gov listing.php insidegov.com en.m AND globalfirepower.com military spending budget defense gdp money spent federal spend billion

Sample Comments

akudha Mar 31, 2021 View on HN

It is not a question of spending money on military, it is a question of how much. Last I checked, the US military budget is around 700B, while healthcare, education etc account for a tenth of that amount. Another question is, how much of this eye popping amount is wasted?

afroboy Dec 8, 2021 View on HN

Shouldn't you say that about the US military budget that goes over 7OO billion dollar each year?

mhermher Apr 29, 2021 View on HN

you can use military spending as a proxy.

omnimus May 6, 2017 View on HN

Well US is putting like 54% of US yearly budget into military. That money must go somewhere. It makes sense it might produce best education. Compare it to 6% US is putting into education. I wonder what would happen if those two numbers were switched.

Tepix Jan 21, 2016 View on HN

Maybe it's because spends a huge amount on military instead?

ashdksnndck Sep 28, 2025 View on HN

Defense is only 13% of federal spending: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...Military spending has actually decreased a lot as a % of GDP in the US over time, so old narratives about this have become less true. So the anti-military-spending orgs have to abuse the numbers if they want to keep that narrative going:<a hre

idlehand Dec 13, 2022 View on HN

The US military budget is ~3.5% of GDP. It makes up about 10% of all government spending. 90% of your tax money does not go to war machines.

bdangubic Sep 28, 2024 View on HN

We spend $900bn on “defense” so not really ;)

Pharylon Aug 29, 2017 View on HN

That's hard to believe, considering how much the US spends on the military.

danssig Mar 19, 2012 View on HN

Because it's a moronic statement. The US military budget is 0.8 trillion dollars a year. As programmers we should know that no other budget items need be considered until this one is brought down drastically.