What's happening to the United States?

@SavageAntarctican
You can debate if this a good or a bad thing, it also factors into defense spending. The U.S. has military presence in many countries and at sea. I personally am for it. We are a freedom loving country we are not China.

Lets have some real figures, just to make this dead boring.
2015 (Last non election year for the previous administration):
US GDP $18.22T (current USD, Statistica)
Total Federal Spending $3.8T
Federal Borrowing $583B

Major Expenditures:
Defense Expenditure $609.3B
Social Security, Unemployment, and related costs $1.28T
Health $1.05T
Veteran's Benefits $160.6B
Interest Payments $229.15B
Tax Breaks $1.22T

Defense made up 53%of discretionary expenditure, 15.88% of total Federal expenditure, about 3.4% of GDP.
Looking at figures on expenditure on social good (Health, Education, Social Security, Housing, etc.) I found at least $2.783T, or more than 4.5 times military expenditure.

2019 (Last non election, and last full year for the current administration):
US GDP $21.43T (current USD, Statistica)
Total Federal Spending $4.4T
Total Federal Income $3.5T
Federal Borrowing $984B

Major Expenditures (Congressional Budget Office)
Defense $676B
Non Defense Discretionary (includes many social programs) $661B
Social Security $1.0T
Medicare + Medicaid $1.05T
"Other" (includes many social programs) $642B
Interest Payments $375B
Info on total Tax Breaks is hard to find. But adding up the 13 largest costs gives $1.05T. This doesn't include Trump's tax cuts, which are largely responsible for the increase in borrowing. They only partially covered their costs.

Defense made up 50.5% of discretionary spending, 15.4% of the total Federal budget, 3.15% of GDP. Social programs were once again many multiples of this. It's not military expenditure that stops the US from having an effective welfare safety net. They have the capacity to pay for both. Collectively, they just choose not to. Seems that as a nation they are willing to trade more social dysfunction and more debt for lower taxes and more corporate involvement.

As an aside, it's hard to find good itemized figures for 2019 yet. CBO likes to lump things together.

@ratzinjammers
You forgot to mention the government debt.

tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt
Click here on max chart.

www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

#12 RATZINJAMMERS

Im not sure about about all of your figures but several speak for themselves like defense spending. The fact remains that there is no social justice and security for large groups of inhabitants in the USA (afroamericans/latinos mainly). Everybody who isn't blind can see that large parts of bigger cities are increasingly deteriorating. The nation is already divided by rich and poor people. Last consequence might be a constant state of violence if not civil war. It's time for a new deal.

@chessprimus The figures are as accurate as can be found, allowing that there is always some imprecision in measurements. The 2015 figures are pretty well known by now. The 2019 figures are a best estimate from what is generally recognized as one of the more reliable sources in the US Federal Government. The CBO. These are slightly less firm, but reasonable to work from. The figures for GDP came from a statistics portal, but were sourced from the World Bank. It is just easier to find on the portal, the World Bank has very good data, but it is poorly set out, hard to find what you are looking for there.

Your aim (a fairer US) is orthogonal to your supporting argument (Too much Military spending), and your solution is too small to really help. $600B to $700B USD looks like a lot of money only if you don't look at the scale of the problem, and the size of the US economy. For example, if we halve the US military budget and distribute it evenly around the US that comes to around $1000 per person per year, or less than 1/10th of the US per capita annual health care cost. We have used half the military budget and not come close to financing universal health care. If we used the whole military budget, we still fall about 80% short.

It is true that many USians are disengaged from their society, feel alienated, and as if they have no stake in their countries success. They say so publicly, loudly, and frequently, and on both sides of politics. It is true that there is a greatly skewed wealth distribution in the US, with a concentration of wealth in the hands a tight elite which is more normal in a third world country than a developed one, and that this causes social disruption. But these are questions of taxation policy, wealth and fiscal distribution, and social policy. Not ones of if around 3% of GDP can offset structural economic and social problems that took hundreds of years to develop, and to which around 13 to 14% of GDP are already being directed, and failing.

The statement that as a nation the US has chosen this degree of social dysfunction is not a moral or ethical assertion. It is merely an observation of fact. Nor is it a suggestion that it must be this way, or that all, or even most citizens of the US as individuals want this. Oddly, when presented with anonymized pie charts of wealth distribution systems most US citizens, including most Republicans, chose Sweden as their preferred system, and most failed to recognize the chart for the US. Nor do I suggest that the majority of US citizens do well from the current system. just that this is how it currently is. America is so divided now, there are so many conflicting interests, and so many groups sowing chaos in the hope of gaining an advantage from it. All of them convinced they have RIGHT on their side. It will take, I think, generations to fix and real taxation reforms supporting real social good. And with enough patience and restraint that the changes last, and that there are still incentives to perform economically. But they need to collectively choose to fix it. It is not likely to be imposed on them as long as the world continues to believe the US has the capacity to pay their debts. If that belief fades both 2020 and the GFC will look like a picnic.

@Bishop1964 I didn't ignore US debt. I refer to components and causes of it at least 8 times. I just didn't state the total debt as that was unnecessary. @SavageAntarctican had done that in #8 above.

@chessprimus first post, gonna break it down piece by piece

"It's horrible and disgraceful to see how almost all major cities are suffering. Lots of abandand houses, homeless people, increasing crime rate."

This is caused by Democrats as most major cities are run by you guessed it Democrats and Democrat policy. The "Homelessness"

The problem is largely a part of the "Drug "Problem", yes of course obligatory "not all". As a certain number of foreclosures are built into the system even in the most thriving economy. (Banks only print Principle Money and neglect to print Interest Money, and still charge interest, but the time lag between payments due and loans taken slows it down.) These high crime rates can be attributed to Democrats as well as they are openly advocating for an abolishment of police, and if you look at how policing is done in a place like seattle politicians basically tie cops hands behind their back and say go out and police nice. Other causes contributing to this massively high crime rates in many of these big cities is also due to "Sanctuary City" status allowing an unlimited number of illegal immigrants to flood in often times taking jobs away from young black men and women. The "Sexual Revolution" didn't really help matters either as if you look at the high single mother rate and also look at the correlation between that and not having a father in the home. Cuked out of the home by Uncle Sam, and putinto the school to prison pipeline.

"Like Merle Haggard put it in his song "America first": Our streets and bridges are falling apart! "

Investments in improved infrastructure would be great for the economy, but would not solve all of the problems.

"Who is liberating these United States. Certainly not Donald Trump. Things have turned from bad to worse."

What is he expected to do? Send in tanks to CHAZ and declare martial law? Bomb his own citizens with predator drones to scatter the looters?

" I don't wonder as almost half of all tax money is going to military projects."

This is a misleading statement. The US military budget of 2020 is 721.5 Billion dollars, and about 1.6 Trillion was taken in income taxes, fair enough that is nearly spot on and taxes collected being nearly half spent on military... but here is the thing, income taxes are not the only taxes collected. The way the US national budget is broken down is into 3 categories.

1) Mandetory Spending 2.966 Trillion (Gigantic entitlement programs Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid)
2) Discretionary Spending 1.485 Trillion (Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development, Homeland security, veteran affiars, fema, and some money set aside for "Disaster Relief" such as a hurricane, wildfire, and so on),
3) Military Spending 721.5 billion (Strictly Military Money, and they figured they would spend 636 billion but have spent a bit more)

The budget deficit was estimated at $966 billion. That's the difference between $3.863 trillion in revenue and $4.829 trillion in spending. This shortfall is added to the existing national debt. THe military is spending about 85 billion dollars more than projected, but at the same time covid hit, and a lot of stuff shut down, then we got the looting and rioting and all that shit it's really a mess with democrats shitting the bed because it is an election year, and got main stream media not helping by spreading this panic and having people loot and riot and revolt burning down Wendy's...

"No money left for social welfare. America quo vadis?"

Nothing a government ever does is caused by a "shortage of money", at least not in this day and age. "Money printer go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" at least when it comes to bailing out a bank that is "Too Big To Fail".

Democrats / BLM / Antifa make a very solid case for "Rule with an iron fist" and "Totalitarianism" perhaps "Fascism" than I have ever seen, or could give examples of in the past. I'm worried about these cry bullies burning down local homes, and businesses more so than any cause of the week they are whining about. When martial law is declared and these protrestors are lined up in front of trenches and then shot in the back of the head order will be restored. It's not pretty, and I don't like it, but the government should not let them burn the country down either, and the rights of these business owners matter. The thing is Trump isn't going to do that, he is gonna only lock them up for like 5-10 years. Trump is going soft when he could go very hard like a wrecking ball.

Lurarose says in #16...
" Other causes contributing to this massively high crime rates in many of these big cities is also due to "Sanctuary City" status allowing an unlimited number of illegal immigrants to flood in often times taking jobs away from young black men and women. "

Shockingly racist statement.!! It is a fact that the illegals do the most menial low-paid kinds of work . His statement declares his opinion that young black people should be doing that work.
The rest of his rant is along the same lines.

@obladie

I have dealt with the likes of you before, or others of your ilk. Often times its easy prey for me.

First thing first. Calling someone racist is simply name-calling and does nothing to solve any worldly issue, and does nothing but virtue signal. You are not getting any virtue signal points out of me buddy. You can't shame me into thinking the way that you do. You must hit me with cold hard facts.

You gotta love these open border advocates. They tend to be for open borders, but only for majority-white liberal democratic nations though strangely. With a glaring exception for Isreal of course for some strange reason being opposed to open border for Isreal.

At what point would you say, "That's enough immigration, and we need to do something about it to stop it? People like you think there should be an unlimited cap. You would find it perfectly acceptable for China and Inda to send 10s of millions of people over to colonize annually. Shifting demographics to shift government in another direction perhaps bringing a ban on McDonald's for they do not worship the cow, and bringing the lovely culture of crapping in the streets. (To be fair though if the streets were lined with crap nobody would be out looting) Not to mention the totalitarian nature of the Chinese communist regime. I'm sure they would be more than happy to help our population grow to suit their needs if we allowed it. There need to be regulations put upon immigration for this very reason or else it's just high population countries colonizing low population countries. I value my freedom too much to let people like you take it away from me. Many of these people do not come here to "Embrace our culture" they come here to "Exploit or culture".

Take Ireland for instance. That is where my people came from, and my ancestors were not welcomed with open arms either in America. Quite the opposite in fact and my people were fleeing a potato famine in the 1840s, and my ancestors had to work for everything they got, and nothing was handed to them. Treated even worse than slaves in many cases. If an Irishman was worked to death a big deal hire another one, but if an African slave were worked to death... Well, that involves making another major purchase. There was plenty of "Irish need not apply" signs.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment
read more here if you are interested

Now of course people like you would call me privileged because of the color of my skin. That is the most real form of racism today.

Every damn year plenty of non-Irish folks celebrate Saint Patrick's day. Do my people bitch and moan, and shout "cultural appropriation" when a Chinaman or black fella wears green and has a drink that day going to the parade? Nah, we are an inclusive people. People like you make up these words, or rather the people who taught you to think the way that you do.

The fact of the matter is without borders, you don't have a country anymore. 100% of illegal immigrants are criminals from day one as they do not respect the laws enough to come into the country or stay in the country legally. Their presence here is a violation of the law.

And for argument's sake, I'm going to look at things through your eyes and still prove you wrong with your own twisted vision of the world. I'll imagine that 100% of illegal immigrants are perfectly law-abiding, and the president grants a full pardon to all people here illegally thus no longer making them a criminal. It still raises the crime rate. "Wait how!?" I'll tell you how. It takes jobs away from the black community. Many of these jobs that illegals take are jobs that would have gone to a young black man. So what does that young black man that tried to be an honest janitor but 500 illegals applied for and he never really had a chance do? Welfare? Yea, some don't break the law and sit back takign a welfare check. Others maybe go to college, but they oftentimes get some liberal arts degree I'm sure you would pat them on the back for but that doesn't help them in the job market and now they got a mountain of debt... So what do they do? They say fuck the system and start selling drugs to make ends meet. Then they spread those drugs all around and people become addicted and start breaking the law robbing places to buy more drugs. So many of them start doing this that police start to notice, "Hey maybe we should stop and frisk black people they sure do seem to be selling a lot of drugs and doing a lot of burglaries" so that's what they start doing... It lowers the crime rate but those immigrants just keep coming and taking black jobs now these young black men got records, and are starting to get pissed at the police. So democrats are like alright it's 1994 and crime is awfully high we gotta lock up these super predators and the school to prison pipeline is built. Millions of blacks are thrown behind bars. So blacks look at shit and start getting fed up, OJ Simpson found innocent... Black people and white people stop being friends over shit like this... blah blah blah black oh shit 9/11 happens we all team up for a minute and are like "Alright fuck these foreigners" not a good time to be a Muslim or Arab in America... To be fair most of those people are good people, honest conservative people. Just so long as you are not gay they are good people. Anyway blah blah blah president chokes on a pretzel our freedoms get smashed time for a change... Oh shit, black (half black) president time... Toss that man a Nobel peace prize for all those predator drone attacks. So that happened crime kept going up the rich kept getting richer and the poor kept getting poorer. Orange man bad comes along and now everything is Donald Trumps fault for some reason. The man became captain of a sinking ship. And it's sinking because of DEMOCRAT PROGRAMS. Democrats get these massive welfare programs setup like the world never seen before and always cry for more more more. Meanwhile, illegals keep rolling in taking black jobs pushing blacks to a lfie of crime thus giving them a criminal stereotype and getting them more so involved with encounters with police and that is why WENDYS MUST BE BURNED DOWN! Wendy's must be burned down because of all this shit. And mainstream media doesn't help one bit they love to push that victim narrative. Fucking propagandists that put Joseph Goebbels to shame. Oh and now lets not forget about the environment as that is a major lefty issue. Would it behoove the world to let migrants from low pollution nations go to high pollution nations and pollute more? I didn't think so... Illegal immigration is a crime against nature and the earth itself.

Take a deep breath, and another and another. I'm making no arguments at the moment, that will come a bit later. Thank you to @obladie , @lurarose , @clousems , @ratzinjammers and others for drilling down with well thought and supported arguments. Building complex positions is not my strength in this forum, perhaps I can improve.

I am aspiring in my life to become a more astute observer of behavior, cultural trends, media and a growing personal favorite, conservative apologetics. In those pursuits I do my best to make contributions and further stimulate a healthy debate.

@morphyms1817 I appreciate your intervention, intention, and sense of perspective.

apologetics:
reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.

conservative:
1. averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values.
2. (in a political context) favouring free enterprise, private ownership, and socially conservative ideas.

1. and 2. above are mutually exclusive aren't they? Averse to change vs Favouring free enterprise...

Definitions via google dictionary which take its definition from Oxford University Press via lexico.com