Guns or Butter?

It is popular for liberal Democrats like Bernie Sanders, AOC, Zohran Mamdani, Abdul El-Sayed and others to say this.

Why do we always have money to fund wars but we never have enough for the public good?

Has the United States been ignoring the public good in favor of national security and defense?

Let's look at a chronology of spending priorities of the federal government from 1945 to 2025 in 10 year increments.

You can view the entire sequence of years from 1940 to 2025 at this link.

In 1945, as the United States was finishing World War II, Defense spending accounted for almost 90% of federal government expenditures.

Social programs did not even account for 1% of total spending.

In 1955, even though the U.S. was beyond World War II and Korea, Defense still consumed 62% of federal spending due to the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

Income Security (welfare) was 7.4% and Social Security was 6.5% of total federal spending.

By 1965 National Defense had declined to 42.8% despite spending on the Vietnam War and the space program.

Social Security had risen to 15% of the budget and Income Security was 8%.

Social spending was destined to dramatically increase from this point forward with the passage of Medicare, Medicaid, food stamp and other social programs during the Lyndon Johnson administration.

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National Defense declined to 26% of federal spending in 1975 after the end of the Vietnam War.

Social Security was up to 20% and Income Security had increased to 15%.

Medicare and Medicaid were still well down the list of spending items.

Ronald Reagan arrested the slide in Defense Spending but the additional spending just kept the percent spent on Defense at the same level in 1985 as it was a decade earlier.

Medicare broke into the top 5 spending categories for the first time.

Social Security, Income Security and Medicare consumed 40% of all federal spending compared to 27% for Defense.

Social Security had overtaken Defense as the largest category of federal spending in 1995.

Over twice as much was being spent on social programs as was spent on National Defense.

In 2005, despite being involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan post 9/11, Defense was down to 20% of federal spending.

The United States was spending more on both Social Security and Health Care (Medicare and Medicaid) than it was on Defense.

2015 saw Defense spending decline to 16% of federal spending.

Social Security and Medicare were taking up 40% of the federal budget as Baby Boomers started to retire.

Income Security and Medicaid for the poor was taking up another 27%.

That brings us to about where we are today.

Defense is down to 16% of federal spending and has almost dropped out of the Top 5 spending categories.

We are actually spending more on interest on the federal debt than on Defense.

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Income Security consumed over half of the federal budget.

Income Security took another 9%.

60%+ spent on these social programs compared to just 13% on Defense.

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How can anyone honestly say that if was not for "wars" and national security that we would be able to properly fund social programs?

When I look at these numbers you wonder how anyone survived without the trillions of dollars that we are now spending on social programs.

However, somehow people did.

For decades there has been a debate about the appropriate tradeoff between "guns and butter".

What is the appropriate level of spending between defense and social programs?

Source: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gunsandbutter.asp

There is little doubt that liberals will continue to argue that not enough is being spent on social programs no matter what the real numbers are.

Guns or butter?

The reality is that butter won the political argument a long time ago.

85 years of federal spending proves that.

A more detailed breakdown of spending for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026 is below.

Credit: https://x.com/Geiger_Capital/status/2113654691959656928