us government budgets

This note last modified September 1, 2024

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Big numbers seen a different way, federal spending in dollars per U.S. resident:

• Museum and Library Services: $0.81
• Planned Parenthood: $1.44
• SNAP fraud: $4.54 (SNAP = food stamps, 2022)
• Israeli aid: \(10.38 + \$39.62 (\)10.38 is average yearly contribution, $39.62 is in recent aid package approved by the House.)
• NASA: $74.32
• Highways: $151.83 (2023)
• Department of Defense: $2,300.51
• Iraq war (total): $4,890.64

Oh, and wealth gain by 1% of richest Americans in 2021: $17,759.30

Sources listed here, all numbers are 2024 budget requests unless otherwise stated: https://kksgandhi.github.io/personal_site/us_government_budgets.html

Caveats:

• SNAP: 2009 study on fraud rates applied to 2022 numbers
• Highways: federal budget only, no individual state spending

US population about 336M (https://www.census.gov/popclock/), making 1B about $2.7322 per person

• 3.8B yearly to Israel, with an additional 14.5B approved by the house (https://apnews.com/article/house-israel-aid-ukraine-republicans-biden-gaza-b7bfe528b12ac5954cfd5c034f11320d) recently as of 2024-02-29
• SNAP (2022): 127.7B (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TRP6001A027NBEA) with a 2% potential fraud rate from this report (https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-19-115). This report shows 1.3% fraud (https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/Trafficking2009_Summary.pdf) in 2009 - 2011
• Veterans benefits (2022) 169.8B (https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A1594C1A027NBEA)
• FEMA 25.5B (https://appropriations.house.gov/news/statements/joyce-remarks-fy24-budget-hearing-federal-emergency-management-agency-prepared)
• NASA 27.2B (https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/fiscal-year-2024-nasa-agency-fact-sheet.pdf?emrc=65ac21c7b579a)
• EPA 12.1B (https://www.epa.gov/planandbudget/cj)
• OSHA 0.738B (https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/general/budget/2024/CBJ-2024-V2-12.pdf)
• Planned Parenthood 0.528B (https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/05/429641062/fact-check-how-does-planned-parenthood-spend-that-government-money)
• DOD 842B
• Wealth gained by the richest 1% in 2021 6500B (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/01/richest-one-percent-gained-trillions-in-wealth-2021.html)
• Infrastructure and transportation (2023): 126.3B with 44% spent on highways (https://usafacts.org/state-of-the-union/transportation-infrastructure/)
• Iraq war: (https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2023/IraqWarCosts)
• Museum and library services (https://www.imls.gov/about/mission/legislation-budget/imls-budget): 0.295B

Tag: money