Chart of the Week: America For the Rich

This week's Chart of the Week is in two parts, examining the relationship between government spending, taxation, and their sociological effect. As these charts are being posted, the state government of Minnesota is in complete shutdown, the second time in six years, as a result of impasse over taxing the wealthy versus cutting government social programs. Many pundits consider the crisis in Minnesota to be a preamble to the looming shutdown of the federal government because radical congressional conservatives refuse to raise the federal debt ceiling without tax increases and draconian cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. The first charts show how US government spends most of its money in comparison to other countries:

The US spends almost as much on defense as Russia and China combined when measured as a percentage of GDP. Since the US economy is larger than all others except China, this translates into by far more money spent on the military than any other possible adversary. The current wars in Afghanistan/Pakistan and Iraq will cost at least $3.7 trillion and perhaps as much as $4.4 trillion, not including interest on the debt necessary for financing according to a study by Brown University. The following shows where the US stands in relation to other countries and the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development) average for the public share of expenditure for health care:

Modern developed countries provide about 75% of the money spent on health care. In remarkable contrast the world's richest nation, the United States, provides less than half of each dollar spent on health care. Only Greece spends less, a country which is effectively bankrupt. The US ranks at the top for private expenditure on health care:

In 2006 the per capita spending on health care in the US was $6,714 a year. What these charts show is that America has the most expensive health care in the world, and most of it is not paid for by the government. Our tax dollars go to finance a huge, wasteful, military-industrial complex used to fight unpopular wars of choice with an expensive professional army. Nevertheless, radical conservatives want to cut comparatively meager government health benefits even more to balance the skyrocketing deficit caused by tax cuts for the wealthy and three concurrent wars. Americans are getting fed up with the situation:

The next post will show you charts of the revenue side of this addiction to debt-financed war mongering.