Uk government tried this a few yrs ago trying to spin the welfare part as work shy bambots then it came out that the lions share was pension pots that took up most of it with the teachers pensions being the one the media focused on
The US has a similar breakdown by % as this Australian one, except that what’s called “welfare” in Australia is called “entitlements” in the US and makes up about 50% of the budget. Welfare in terms of the dole aka money given to “work shy bambots” makes up only about half of one percent.
My favorite thing about budget breakdowns in the US is how often pundits list defense spending as a percentage of GNP (gross national product) rather than as a percentage of the annual budget. Nothing else in the budget ever gets this kind of favorable treatment (which makes it appear smaller than it actually is) except sometimes debt service.
I don’t think that’s favorable treatment. Defense is 3%. Social Security is 5%. Medicaid and Medicare is also 5%.
We can afford our defense budget and make the country better for the common person by utilizing our funds more efficiently and/or moving to universal healthcare.
Always liked this because it helps people see to some extent where money is going.
I know the UK and Portugal do this as well. It was especially interesting in the UK during the Brexit years because you could see a tiny piece of that pie chart with EU contributions, almost saying “this is how little of our money is going to Europe”, didn’t do any good in the end but hey, still great info to have that all detailed
That welfare budget is a load of of shit, too. If you have a look at the actual breakdown, most goes on housing (read: private landlords) and(!) pensions.
Some crafty fucker in the dwp had the genius idea of splitting up state and civil service pensions, placing civil service pensions under the welfare group to make the welfare bill higher. Out of the welfare budget I think only 5% of that goes on the unemployed. Out of that 5% only 1% of that 5% figure goes to the long term unemployed. (Being on the dole >6months). Yet they only bang on shit the feckless and workshy…
There is a whole department dedicated to the assessment and allocation of funding for the disabled under 65 y.o. If you’re over 65 then it became the aged pension.
Tories in the UK did this and obfuscated to their agenda
They showed "pensions" but that was only public sector worker pensions then added the universal state pension to the "benefits" section to claim we had a bloated benefits budget for scroungers despite them being the party of triple lock pension (linked to greater of wages, inflation and aribitary 2%)
I think this is a pretty good idea, actually. While this kind of information is available in most western places, people usually can’t be bothered to look it up and then have very weird ideas about what their taxes are probably spent on. This would at least help clear some things up.
You people live in a fantasy world where physical threats do not exist. The US is leading the way protecting Asia and Europe. The entire balkins would be under RU is it wasn’t for that spending.
The spending it’s needed and it’s EU/Asia doesn’t step up it’s game they’ll ultimately be a second tier power to the United States perpetually. Their call I guess 🤷♂️.
I mean sadly you’re right - people like to hate on our defense spending in the US, but who does the world look towards when Russia invades Ukraine? It sucks that it needs to be this way, but if we don’t have a strong deterrent to other countries then we’re just asking for problems. Look at how aggressive China and Russia have gotten recently, with China inching closer to an invasion of Taiwan. Who’s going to be laughing when the US is there to help Taiwan?
We know more about geo politics in the region than you do. And your drastic oversimplification does not actually result in a reasonable and coherent plan for peace in the Asia pacific region. Again I’ll say, your presence and commentary in this case is misinformed and incorrect.
I’m not sure why your being downvoted, but it’s true. Allied countries of the U.S. do not have to put much towards their military budget do to being able to rely on the U.S.
The U.S. has a strong military presence in the Indo-pacific region and if they didn’t, surely some adversaries would have already been having their way.
It’s unfortunate it comes to this but that’s just the facts.
As much as I dislike the man, credit where credit is due, I guess. Then again, it was probably the idea of some mid-level employee whose name will be lost in history.
I thought I read that his original intent was for the breakdown to be less detailed so as to obfuscate the true nature of welfare payments. Then some cheeky ATO staff delivered the more detailed version.
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