Writer's Block: Fly me to the moon

[woodwardiocom]

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. . . Have you looked at a breakdown of the US federal budget?

Here you go.

Defense, $782 billion, Soc. Sec. $678 billion, Medicaid/care $676 billion, interest on the debt $187 billion, TARP $151 billion, "other mandatory" $607 billion, "other discretionary" at $437 billion.

NASA's budget lurks inside "other discretionary". It's way too small to break out in a pie chart. Here are the numbers for NASA. For 2009, it was about $18 billion, or 0.6% of the total US budget. NASA's budget has never been more than 5% of the total, and that was when we were putting people on the moon.

Do I think it's worth it? We could triple it and still hide it inside the money allocated for planes the Air Force doesn't want. We could quintuple it and I'd still say it's a bargain.

But even if you think it should be zero, let me ask you: Would you rather save $18 billion by eliminating NASA, or by requiring the military to tighten its belt to the tune of 2.3%?

Comments

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

If you haven't seen this poster before, it's something you might enjoy;
http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/

Th artist's main website and a bit of the back story. The Death and Taxes poster has been updated with new budget information, and reissued, four years running. I think we have the 2008 version.
http://www.wallstats.com/

[darxus.livejournal.com]

It seems like this should include large circles for Social Security, Medicaid + Medicare, and interest on the debt, and it doesn't?

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

From the Site's FAQ; it explains that the poster deliberately focuses on the discretionary aspects of the budget. It also explains how entitlement programs are complex in both bulky and specific ways. This poster is being produced by a single artist, who is also has other projects and the need to produce a daily income. He had to impose some limits on the overall project in order to produce it at all. I am personally impressed with the way he has managed to impose some level of version control. I have had more than one personal art project fail due to this problem.

FAQ

Why do you focus on the discretionary budget?

The discretionary budget funds all cabinet level departments and what is referred to most often when people think of the 'federal government.' It is the single largest part of the budget at one trillion dollars or roughly one third of pot. It is also the portion of the budget that Congress can easily push numbers around year to year which makes it a great tool for tracking our real national priorities. The total budget is depicted (not to scale) in the bottom right corner of the Death and Taxes poster.

Entitlement spending is also not included in detail for practical reasons. Social Security and Medicare cannot be broken down into small programs as other governmental departments can. The bulk of the funds are small payments to millions of people which cannot be graphed in the same manner as the rest of the poster. If entitlement spending were included to scale with the discretionary budget the overall detail of the poster would have to be decreased dramatically if the 24"x36" size were to me maintained.

What do you consider military or national security spending?

While many people think the military is confined to the Department of Defense, that is not the case. The Department of Defense has budgeted $552 billion, but that does not include the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding, which is listed as $160 billion. TheWhitehouse also lists the following as security funding. Department of Energy - $11.2 billion (this is mostly related to nuclear weapons), Homeland Security - $43.6 billion, Veterans Affairs - $57 billion, State Department - $58.5 billion. There are other various pockets of military and security related funding in other civilian departments as well. It all adds up to $895 billion.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

That seems very misleading. I think most people are likely to assume that the overall graph is intended to represent the entire federal budget, not a third of it. And I don't think the thing in the bottom right hand corner makes it okay.

[pale-chartreuse.livejournal.com]

Like I said, this is a private project, by a single individual, done in a tight time frame in order to stay relevant at all. All of the numbers are publicly available. The strength of this artwork is that fact that it is done as a single graphic rather than as the multiple graphs that were linked/part of the original posting here. If you think something else should be done, then that may mean that it is an opportunity for you.

To show everything, the total debt service would also need to be shown. It looks like the artist has a new piece that just deals with the current debt, but I'm not familiar with that work.

I got one for my husband two years ago and he found it was a great conversation starter in the office. The price for the poster has not gone up in several years, though it looks like the fully laminated version is no longer available. I don't regret spending the $24 dollars : -)

[darxus.livejournal.com]

I get the point about the limited resources of a single individual. But I don't buy it. It would take me a few seconds to add three circles to make it no-longer misleading. It would take me a few more minutes to get logos on them to make them match the rest of the poster and scale everything down maybe to fit on the poster in its current size (assuming I had the vector graphics data in a reasonably editable format, which the creator clearly has).

It's a good start, but it's really misleading. Calling it "art" doesn't make it less misleading. It is very effectively obscuring the financial burden of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the interest on the debt. To the extent it seems intentional.

And I don't think the total debt service needs to be effectively communicated in order to make it substantially less misleading.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Or by paying down some of the national debt??

Plus, I started going, "TARP? What the hell is TARP?"

... Wow. Oh wow.

I'm glad as hell I don't get this sick feeling when I look at my *own* finances. (Only, of course, these *are* also my own finances.)

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I don't know why you say "or."

The United States is headed for big trouble financially; current government spending is unsustainable, with consequences that can be seen by looking at California, or Greece. Drastic pruning back is needed everywhere. But the biggest single enemy of this is special interest groups that will say, "But our particular benefit is vitally important and doesn't cost enough to be important!" By the time you've accepted that argument for every group that wants to make it, you have cuts too trivial to matter. So if you're serious about fiscally sound policy, you have to start by accepting that your particular special interest should be cut too. Not "or" but "and." I love space exploration as much as anyone, but that's like saying, "Can't you make an exception to the rule just for my kid?"—by the time everyone has had their turn to say that the rule is dead and gone.

[aota.livejournal.com]

We could easily get the money to increase the space program by just cutting the fat from so many of the programs that dominate the US budget.

[feste-sylvain.livejournal.com]

I think space exploration (and exploitation) is so important, I want the government out of it.

Space's Columbus time is done. Queen Isabella should back off and unleash the spice traders.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Is there commercial interest that is being blocked?

[crazybone.livejournal.com]

I think the biggest benefit to the US space program is to have it go private. Not single comapany-owned but maybe a conglomeration of companies like SpaceDev and a few others that each puts in a percentage of their profits to supporting the program. They sell/rent space for space trips and cargo, including things for the US military. That way you can have a portion of the military budget going to space travel anyway.
That's my $.02 anyway.