We The People?

In my last blog post I debunked the argument that the United States is neglecting spending on social programs and education in favor of defense.

I thought I would delve a little deeper into the issue by providing some historical context to the issue of spending on social programs and how far the priorities of the federal government have shifted since the Founders first established the framework of governmental responsibilities.

Consider the wording of the United States Constitution.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The preamble to the Constitution lists five significant priorities in order "to from a more perfect Union".

 Our founders specifically stated that they wanted to "establish Justice", "insure domestic Tranquility", "provide for the common defense", "promote the general Welfare" and "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".

Of these five priorities, note that four of them have strong verbs attached. They wanted to establish justice. They wanted to insure that there is domestic tranquility.  They wanted to provide for the common defense. They wanted to secure the Blessings of Liberty.   There seems to be no doubt that they saw all of these as the most important national priorities.

However, when it comes to the general welfare, they only wanted to promote it. There is no mention of establishing it, or insuring it, providing for it or securing it. They also did not say anything about individual welfare. They referred only to the general welfare.

This seems to suggest that when they referred to general welfare they were considering those things that would be generally available to all. They were not considering items that would make some people winners and other losers at the hand of the federal government.  

What are items of general welfare? Roads, post offices, the coining of money, standard weights and measures and the regulation of international and interstate commerce are specifically mentioned in Article 8 as is the erection of forts, dockyards and other needful buildings.

You could probably also consider the national park system, public health programs, public transportation and other broad-based programs available to the public at large to clearly be within the spirit of promoting general welfare.

Public education would also be included in general welfare but this was clearly considered to be a state and local function at the time that the Constitution was written. This continues to be primarily a state and local responsibility today despite efforts by the federal government to assert itself on the issue.

How much of the federal budget is spent on defense, justice, police and internal security and other programs that benefit the population at large today?  Less than 1/3 of the budget is spent on what the Constitution established as the big priorities.  

In 1945, we spent 97.6% of the budget on these items.  In 1960, we spent about 75% on these priorities. As late as the early 1990's, we still spent the majority of the federal budget on these government roles.

Direct payments to individuals now account for over 69% of all federal expenditures in the federal budget. In dollars, that was $4.85 trillion out of $7.01 trillion in total spending in the 2025 federal budget.

In other words, we are spending over twice as much on these "special interest" payments as we do on defense, justice, roads, research, national parks and everything else that is for the overall "public interest"---combined!

If Defense spending (arguably the one function of the federal government that is probably most essential) and interest payments are excluded, direct payments to individuals account for 94% of all federal spending.

What are "payments for individuals"? These are federal government spending programs designed to transfer income (in cash or in kind) to individuals or families.  This includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran's Benefits, Welfare, Food Stamps and Student Loans.  

It does not include salaries to government workers or the military as these are considered to be payments in return for services provided.  Therefore, "payments for individuals" effectively represent what amounts to the redistribution of income from one person to another with the federal government serving as the middle man.

These are not outlays for the common defense, the common good, public works or public safety. These are government payments that are intended to benefit select individuals based on their age, their income, their health or any one of a number of other distinctions.

Where is this money being spent and who is receiving it?

Social Security and Medicare account for 65% of it.  However, $1.9  trillion is being spent on direct or indirect forms of welfare---Medicaid, food stamps, disability, public assistance, housing assistance, unemployment assistance and student loans.

This chart shows the breakdown of payments of individuals in the 2025 federal budget.

By comparison, in 1975 the federal government spent just $155 billion on outlays for payments to individuals in the federal budget. 

The various forms of welfare (Medicaid, unemployment, food stamps etc) have grown from $63 billion to $1.9 trillion (an increase of 30x between 1975 and today.

The chart below shows the increases in the major categories of payments to individuals in the federal budget between 1975 and 2025 in comparison to total spending, population, GDP, inflation and the Defense budget.

As you can see, there has been a massive increase in spending on social programs since 1975.

Medicare and Medicaid are both up over 80x in the last 50 years. 

Looking at these numbers who can honestly believe that more government money and regulation in the healthcare market has done anything but make healthcare more expensive for everyone?

I am not suggesting that all of these programs are ill-considered or bad. After all, Social Security and Medicare are there for everyone. Workers pay into these programs and deserve a return on their "investment" without someone drastically changing the rules on them just as they near retirement.

However, we all need to look in the mirror and ask ourselves how we have allowed what began as well-meaning social safety net programs to reach the point that they now account for over 2/3 of federal spending?

At the same time, direct payments to individuals represented 92.6% of total receipts for the year.

If you add the $970 billion of interest paid on the federal debt in 2025 to the $4.8 trillion in payments to individuals. it equals almost $600 billion more in spending than total receipts.

Everything else that the federal government is spending money on (defense, law enforcement, justice system, public health, public transportation, national parks, the post office etc), and which our Founders specifically established as federal government priorities, would not even exist without annual borrowing. 

Even worse, collections of individual income taxes and payroll taxes only amounted to $4.4 trillion in the for the year. This means that the $4.8 trillion in "payments for individuals" in the federal budget are not even being covered by the $4.4 trillion in "payments from individuals" in taxes. You could call it redistribution but more is being redistributed than is being taken in.

What began as a social safety net has become a societal noose around our necks!

We could.not have moved much further away from the federal government framework established in the Constitution.

I don't believe that our Founding Fathers would believe it.

Is there anyone who still believes in what "We the People" means anymore?  

It seems clear that the people we have been electing for the last couple of generations don't.

We The People? 

The reality is that everything now is about Me, Me, Me.

All of the data on federal government spending is taken from Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal 2025 Historical Tables.