🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <201-PCNews-124beta@ccs.covici.com> covici@ccs.covici.com writes:

   [usual silly net-noise about federal budget items]
   [several others quoted, arguing that defense is largest]

The OMB proposed budget for 1993 includes the following fascinating
numbers:

       Defense                        291.0
       Veterans Benefits & Services    34.3

       Education & Social Services     49.6
       Health                         108.2
       Medicare                       129.3
       Income Security                199.5
       Social Security                302.3

       Net Interest                   214.6

These are more-or-less right in line with the preceding years' numbers
that I've been tracking online since 1989.  Fans of defense-budget
bashing should note that while defense _is_ the largest *single* budget 
item after social-security (before it if we include veterans), saying
so is massively deceptive given the above numbers.  The various forms
of welfare listed above total out to 486.6 which is a *LOT* more than
the defense budget.  (I am omitting the Social Security amount.)

Just to be perfectly clear, I favor a 50% cut in military spending
over the next four to five years.  But I hate watching lies and deceptions
passed off by the net.leftists as if they were factual, which is why I
always object to the mischaracterizations of our federal budget as
being defense-oriented.  It's simply not true.

--
  Robert Bickford        /-------------------------------------\
  rab@well.sf.ca.us      | Don't Blame Me: I Voted Libertarian |
                         \-------------------------------------/