Aielyn said:
First of all, I feel I have to point out that he said income tax, not total spending. The US took in $2.3 trillion in revenue in 2011, against $3.6 trillion in expenses. So if you factor that in, it turns out that that 20% spent on the department of defense, alone, jumps up to 31.3%. Add in VA, and you get 39.1%. It's not hard to believe that another 6-7% of total expenses is spent on the various other military-related expenses. |
Right. We are talking about the Income tax rate. Social security and medicare are not paid for by Income tax.
And I don't see the argument that social security is paid for via income tax, except for interest on the bonds purchesed which is a tiny portion of the total Social Security spending. Social security is funded by the payroll tax, and up until recently (deficit the last few years) the surplus went to purchase bonds and that money was used to fund other things. That way I could see the argument the payroll tax ends up funding discretionary spending, but not the other way around.
EDIT: Something to illustrate the point
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