alt Hacker NewsThe poster said they work in academia, not the part that has to do with science, so it seems unfair to compare the F35 to all of academia when they were complaining about science being cut.
Later, after the math showing that graduate students as a whole are more expensive than the F35 program, you claim that the U.S already spends more on education and science than the military.
The claim is of course somewhat unclear, because what comprises science spending. Is Darpa science and not military. Does Nasa count as science in this claim? If Nasa does then it might be that you throw all the budgets of NOAA and the EPA and other similar organizations into the Science pile. I say it just because I am unsure how you are calculating one part of your budget. Actually the education part I am going to suggest that is just higher education.
Higher education is around 100 billion a year, without student loans which doubles that.
The U.S government spends also approximately a couple hundred billion for Science, if I am reading this correctly https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf26314 which does a lot of work putting government and business spending together which gives you a number essentially what the government spends on the military.
I can easily construct something that shows the U.S does pay more for science and education than it does for military, but only by being IMHO somewhat misleading, for example by throwing K-12 spending together with the higher education payments and mixing federal and state monies, so to clarify what I mean when I say the U.S in these kinds of conversations and what I think most people mean is "the federal government"
I suppose that the original poster also meant the federal government or it wouldn't make any sense to mention F-35s either.
Under this limitation I believe that the combined ratio of science and higher education is at best 0.8% of GDP and military is 2.8%.
Although it is not really possible to trust very much the data one receives from the American government any more so I am uncertain.
for example this document - I am just having a hard time to trust what data goes into these various parts as federal spending in that area.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
At any rate the military 2.8% I am quoting based on looking around is historically low. I would expect, especially given Iran, that it would be more in line with the historical 4.1%.
pgpf on https://www.pgpf.org/article/the-united-states-spends-more-o...
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> I can easily construct something that shows the U.S does pay more for science and education than it does for military, but only by being IMHO somewhat misleading, for example by throwing K-12 spending together with the higher education payments and mixing federal and state monies, so to clarify what I mean when I say the U.S in these kinds of conversations and what I think most people mean is "the federal government"
I disagree: total tax burden and allocation is the relevant aspect, regardless of pointless semantics about which government unit disbursed the funds.
You admit the fact:
US governments spend more on education and science than the military, as measured by total funds allocated to purpose.
I think you’re the one being misleading by quibbling semantics about who dispersed the money: US taxpayers give more of their tax money to science and education than the military.
You focus on the federal government rather than totals is precisely to obscure that fact — which you know to be true, but find inconvenient for your politics. Hence the semantic quibbles.
other issues - Veterans Administration budget is always not calculated as part of defense spending, because they are separate agencies. So when people say military budget they may be keeping that separate, however putting them together of course increases the amount spent
I happen to believe this document on money more than others, because publication controlled by congress and not the executive.
Atlas of Military Compensation (Biden) https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59475
If we also ask congress for Scientific research funding https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48307 (also under Biden)
about 50% of the 0.6%-0.7% of GDP it reports is to the Department of Defense.
The military industrial complex is getting money from all sorts of things that we describe as separate, but are really part of it.