What My Government Spends My Money On

In today's TIA Daily, Robert Trancinski asserts that privatizing Social Security is the best possible opportunity to redefine the relationship between the government and the private citizen. Tracinski says that Social Security is the biggest single contributing factor to the size of the government, and privatizing Social Security would be the first step in eliminating the source of funds that keeps it going. This could start a domino effect, since privatizing Social Security could lead to privatizing Medicare, both of which take up a third of the federal budget. Once the cycle of altruism has been broken, it could lead to further cuts in welfare, both "social" and "corporate".

Here are the figures Tranciski bases his argument on. They are a breakdown of the projected Federal budget for 2005, from a government document at http://tinyurl.com/2hkqu.

Police, courts, and military: $600 billion
Debt service: $400 billion
Regulation: $50 billion
Subsidies: $240 billion
Welfare: $400 billion
Social Security and Medicare: $850 billion

Total projected Federal expenditures for 2005: $2.6 trillion