Persuasive Essay On Government Spending

Something that I vehemently disagree on with both political parties is defense spending. In their platforms, both parties seem to favor an increase in funding, even if it is a bit more discretely worded under the Democratic Party’s platform. In my view, we allocate too much of our country’s resources to the military, and neglect many of its other needs in doing so. The United States military is by far and away the most puissant armed organization in the world. Here are some figures that help illustrate just how pragmatic that last statement is. In the 2015 fiscal year we spent 598 billion dollars on the military; that’s over fifty percent of the federal government’s discretionary spending.(1) In 2016, only 19 of 194 nations had a higher GDP than America’s defense budget; that means that the U.S. spends more money per year on its military than the total value of all goods produced and services provided in a country in a year in 90 percent of the world’s nations.(2) According to 2016 statistics the U.S. spends more on its defense than the next eight countries combined.(3) That same year, China was second with a 215 billion dollar defense budget and Russia was third at approximately 69 billion.

Overspending is a pertinent problem facing the lawmakers in Congress. In 2012 discretionary spending reached $1.3 trillion and mandatory spending $2 trillion, while only bringing in $2.5 trillion in revenue. Since the turn of the century back in 2000, non-mandatory spending by the government has topped out a whopping $16.1 trillion just in the past 13 years (Boccia, Frasser & Goff 2013). This persistent overspending on programs and services that are not necessary to the functionality of the country is what is causing the deficit to rise year after year. To remedy this issue the government must either increase the revenue it brings in through taxes and trade or reduce the amount of money it spend or perhaps even both. In 2012 thirty-one cents of every dollar that Washington spent was borrowed (Boccia, Frasser & Goff 2013). Most of which went to large programs such as Social Security and Medicare and if these large, growing programs, or just the budget in general, do not undergo financial reform it could spell disaster for the economy and fiscal state of the nation.

School funding is a mix of different funding sources like federal, state, and local. About ninety percent of funding for education comes from state and local community. K-12 education has failed to keep up with high enrollment. Schools must spend to counter effects of poverty while many European countries alleviate these conditions through government spending. Currently more than forty percent of low income school get an extremely unfair share of state and local funds. Low income school are receiving inadequate funds for their school, whereas other schools in the United States are unfairly distributing their state and local funds. That is unfair to the low income schools because those schools really need the money for school books, field trips, etc. Funding for public schools has been quite unequal for years, but even though Americans are fully aware of this issue no one does anything to solve it. Researchers are trying to show them both sides of this unequal funding issue in public schools in order to help balance the distribution of educational funding.

As we discussed and read about this week in our class, the topic of the US Budget and how, why and what should we do about it has become a topic with many views and opinions. The United States of America currently holds over 16 Trillion dollars in debt based on our governments spending practices for the last ten years. Two wars, numerous fiscal collapses and cliffs, a bubble popped housing market, looming medical care costs from a socialized healthcare law and a recession have caused the government to acquire enormous amounts of debt. This debt with caused by what seems to be from irresponsible spending on both the Legislative and the Executive Branches have done nothing to lessen this deficit. One idea that has been discussed not only in

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down and that will help lower the defense spending by almost $1 trillion over the next decade. The congress is realizing that they need to do some restructuring and have already begun rearranging the military budget in response to austerity. Congress conjured up a $630 billion defense appropriations bill that made plans to reduce civilian and contractor personnel by 5 percent over the next five years and in return ramp up advanced weapons programs, including drones, bombers and missiles says The Washington Post. The American Conservative

The United States has adopted a persona of uncontrollable spending policies, and short term solutions. As the spending trajectory continues in a downward spiral, fueled by unsustainable policies, and current tax revenues, the national debt continues to grow. For many years, the United States has implemented policies that failed to address mandatory spending costs, which, unfortunately continue to outpace the national economy. Furthermore, Congress has created a habit of introducing short term solutions in order to confront a long term issue of national debt. Although, there are many driving forces behind the U.S. fiscal problem, mandatory spending

With the United Stated national debt being over $19 trillion dollars, many Americans are worried about the country’s long-term debt problems. In order to make this national deficit, the government needs to operate with a budget plan. For the past 10 years, the federal government’s budget has continually operated as a loss. As the money continues to grow over time, the United States goes deeper and deeper into debt. Our current way of trying to grow our economy out of debt is not working.

The historical federal spending of the government has already done significant damage to America; spending habits have increased the federal budget deficit at alarming rates adding $2.7 trillion to the national debt in two years, $1.4 trillion in the 2009 fiscal year and $1.3 trillion in 2010. (Montgomery)   These deficits are largely caused by increases in spending rates. The current Obama Administration has used the recession in their favor to expand both the government and spending.

The U.S. national debt is very large at more than three-quarters the size of the economy—and growing federal spending, especially on entitlements, is quickly driving the debt to damaging levels. Federal spending was about 23 percent of the GDP in 2012—far above the historical average of 20.2 percent. It is projected to surge to nearly 36 percent in less than one generation. The government debt must be limited in some way or else our economy will face devastating consequences. The government debt has had its highs and lows throughout history in comparison to the GDP, and to reduce it, we must minimize spending on entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.

In 2010, President Obama’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said, “I think the biggest threat we have to our national security is our debt.” Right now, the United States has a debt of 18.96 trillion dollars. Over half of the discretionary spending in 2015 was spent on the military. The majority of mandatory spending was spent on social security, unemployment, labor, Medicare, and health. I believe there are a lot of components that have caused our national debt, but the most glaring problem is the government spending money on unnecessary expenses and the high expenditures for the military, social security, and healthcare programs. In order to lower the national debt, the government could cut back spending in some

I think it’s very important to reduce the huge amount of National Debt. Because this huge amount of Debt is creating a big burden for the upcoming generation. Comparatively, almost half of this huge debt is owed by the federal government in many ways such as Treasury Bills, Treasury notes, Treasury Bonds etc. (*1). It seems like government is spending more than earn money as revenue. However, when the amount of debt get bigger, government needs to borrow some money to suppress the huge amount. After a passage of time these borrowing money pile up with the National Debt, so the figure gets bigger and bigger.

Source: CDC, National Center for Health Statistics, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Health, United States, 2002. Flegal et. al. JAMA. 2002;288:1723-7. NIH, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Clinical Guidelines on the Identification, Evaluation and Treatment of Overweight and Obesity in Adults, 1998.

“Your assignment is to write a persuasive essay and present it to the class in a week. You will be graded based on how convincing it is. Today we will be choosing topics,” announced Mr. Bowerbank, my 7th grade English teacher and ruler of classroom 110. My class simultaneously groaned at the prospect of work. I simply lifted my head with intrigue as it was already May and about time we had our first essay. He then proceeded to give examples of topics we could choose and gave us some time to think before we had to tell him our topic. My classmates were already rushing to tell the teacher their idea lest someone else steal it. That meant the usual abortion, death penalty, or drug use topics were out. I really couldn't think of anything and the teacher was slowly making his way through the remaining students like an executioner beheading criminals in a line. I have always thought that he would make a marvelous supervillain if he had a curly mustache, a tophat, and a cape. Eventually my name was called. I slowly dragged myself over to his desk. Even sitting down, he still seemed to tower over me. “What is your topic Cindy?” As usual in such desperate times, my mind turned to food. “Waffles are better than pancakes.” I figured that a waffle was just a differently shaped pancake with a nicer texture. “Hmm. Excellent topic. I look forward to your essay!” I survived to live yet another day.

Throughout most of the country’s history, the United States’ federal government maintained a reasonable level of national debt. For example, the total national debt in 1981 was $998 billion. Since then, however, the government has generated significant budget deficits, and the level of debt has risen to $16.7 trillion in 2013 (Calleo, 39). Budget deficits are caused

Classrooms filled with ignorant teenagers, the value of education has been lost and the importance of government has completely disappeared in today’s America. Students are growing up with a mentality that government ‘does not matter’ and it is ‘not important’. This mentality can be changed through proper education. Knowledge of past documents that our founding fathers created as the basis of our country are essential to understanding our government. Students need to learn about the founding documents in order to be well educated citizens able to vote and take part in our government.