Chapter 3: We Are So Wasteful
Government spending has been a huge issue for years now and unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it’s getting better. We waste so much money on things that we don’t need but then complain about not having enough money for the things that is necessary. The government needs to find a new financial agent because the one they have is not working right. The government has been spending money excessively and something needs to change.
The government has three spending groups; mandatory spending, discretionary spending, and interest on debt. Mandatory spending is spending that is automatically set aside to use for important programs and takes up about 60 percent of the total spending. Mandatory spending is social security, unemployment, labor, medicare and health, food and agriculture, veterans’ benefits, and transportation. This part of the spending is untouchable. Discretionary spending is money that the consumers spent on necessary and personal items. This takes up about 30 percent of the spending and is made out of military, education, veterans’ benefits, government, housing and community, medicare and health, and more. Discretionary spending is adjustable. In other words, it can increase or decrease. And the interest in debt is the money the U.S. owes other countries and it is 6 percent of the total spending.
The government has three spending groups; mandatory spending, discretionary spending, and interest on debt. Mandatory spending is spending that is automatically set aside to use for important programs and takes up about 60 percent of the total spending. Mandatory spending is social security, unemployment, labor, medicare and health, food and agriculture, veterans’ benefits, and transportation. This part of the spending is untouchable. Discretionary spending is money that the consumers spent on necessary and personal items. This takes up about 30 percent of the spending and is made out of military, education, veterans’ benefits, government, housing and community, medicare and health, and more. Discretionary spending is adjustable. In other words, it can increase or decrease. And the interest in debt is the money the U.S. owes other countries and it is 6 percent of the total spending.
The government start off with so much money but they waste so much of it on programs and events that is basically useless. For example, the taxpayer funded political ads on MSNBC. This was a program that aired commercials about the Obama administration job efforts. This made $495,000 but it was completely useless because it only ran on the Olberman and Maddow MSNBC shows and it didn’t create any new jobs. But it seems like most of the waste is to animals. For example, according to a fox news airing, the government threw out $387,000 to give rabbits Swedish massages. They also stated that the government spent $856,000 to put mountain lions on treadmills and $171,000 to watch monkeys gamble.
But other than animals, the government also wasted money on things that are extremely pointless. Things such as a program that spent $190,000 to observe the digestion of worms and $46,000 in Michigan for a snowmobile competition. The government talks about not having enough money for children’s education or benefits and well pay for the teachers but why is that? The reason for this is because they are busy using that money for useless activities and programs. "We should be ashamed that we're wasting money the way that we are," We are just flushing money down the toilet and not even caring. The government lacks to pay attention to things that are important to spend money on but is willing to dish out hundreds of thousands of dollars for relaxing rabbits and a snowmobile competition.
But other than animals, the government also wasted money on things that are extremely pointless. Things such as a program that spent $190,000 to observe the digestion of worms and $46,000 in Michigan for a snowmobile competition. The government talks about not having enough money for children’s education or benefits and well pay for the teachers but why is that? The reason for this is because they are busy using that money for useless activities and programs. "We should be ashamed that we're wasting money the way that we are," We are just flushing money down the toilet and not even caring. The government lacks to pay attention to things that are important to spend money on but is willing to dish out hundreds of thousands of dollars for relaxing rabbits and a snowmobile competition.
According to the U.S. Government Spending, all spendings will be in the trillions in 2015. Welfare spending will be $0.5 trillion, defense spending will be $0.8 trillion, education spending will be $1 billion, health care spending will be $1.4 trillion, and pensions spending will be $1.2 trillion. The total spending adds up to $6.6 trillion in 2015. This spending went from 4 trillion to 6 trillion since Obama’s first year as president. And now it’s going on 7 trillion on his last year in his second term. There has been some very aggressive spending that been happening and we are left to not only blame ourselves but also the people who suppose to take charge when they see issues like this occurring.
Democracy play a huge role in government spending because most of the money that the government waste on pointless programs comes from taxpayers. We don’t have the right to not pay the taxes but we should have a say to where it’s going. We should not be working hard everyday just to pay for rabbit massages that we couldn’t afford for ourselves. And this haven’t changed because of the people we have in office and their mindset. They think that we have money to just dish out to everybody whenever we want to but we don’t. And another reason for this is because we the people are letting it. The government needs to control the amount of money they’re spending and what they’re using this money for and we need to inform them on where we want the money to go. Learn to stick to the important things and speak up.
Democracy play a huge role in government spending because most of the money that the government waste on pointless programs comes from taxpayers. We don’t have the right to not pay the taxes but we should have a say to where it’s going. We should not be working hard everyday just to pay for rabbit massages that we couldn’t afford for ourselves. And this haven’t changed because of the people we have in office and their mindset. They think that we have money to just dish out to everybody whenever we want to but we don’t. And another reason for this is because we the people are letting it. The government needs to control the amount of money they’re spending and what they’re using this money for and we need to inform them on where we want the money to go. Learn to stick to the important things and speak up.