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What the GP is talking about is that there are differing opinions on what counts as "military spending" or "defense spending". The CBO has its definition, but that is not universally accepted, particularly by people who think that the USA spends far too much on its military.

The question of whether or not e.g. veteran's health care should be considered part of military spending is not a stupid one, even if people may differ on their answers.

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jack_h 5 days ago | parent [-]

I suppose that’s fair, but kind of tangential. The point I was making was that if discretionary spending, approximately 25% of outlays, could be completely cut we would still have a deficit. I’m not suggesting this is even possible, I’m merely using it as a demonstration of the scale of the problem.

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PaulDavisThe1st 5 days ago | parent [-]

Fair enough.

I'd still quibble with your whole framing though. For example:

> This is a trillion dollars that cannot be used to provide government services.

I don't know if you have a mortgage, but assuming you do, is it useful to say of the interest payments you make on that "this is X dollars that cannot be used to buy food, heat, gas or streaming services" ? I suggest that it is not, and for reasons that apply to government too.

Capital investments, and debt more broadly, comes in good, bad and indifferent varieties. Some portion of the US national debt arises from spending on "good" things, some on "bad" things and quite a bit on "indifferent" things. There's no point in (accurately) noting that a mortgage payer cannot use the money they pay in interest to pay for other things, because we (broadly) accept that borrowing money in order to own your own home is sensible and comes with lots of its own utility/value. Whatever portion of US national debt arises from "good" spending can be viewed in the same manner.

Of course, how the actual apportionment between good/bad/indifferent spending is described will vary with political outlook and many other things, so there's no single answer to the question "how much of the national debt is a good thing". But it's certainly some of it ...

	▲	jay_kyburz 5 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> I suggest that it is not, and for reasons that apply to government too. I disagree, I think it is useful, and in fact important for young people to carefully consider the size of their mortgage and the interest they have to pay. A persons long term financial health can be greatly impacted by the size of their mortgage, and I would always recommend taking the smallest possible loan. Taking a mortgage only makes sense if you would otherwise have to pay rent. Same applies to governments. In fact, I go one step further and think its shocking that one generation of people would leave behind a massive debt for their children and grandchildren have to service. I don't agree with how DOGE is going about things, and I'm not a US citizen, but I strongly believe governments should be generating surpluses for their children to enjoy, not deficits for their children to pay off.
	▲	jack_h 5 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I think we’re actually broadly in agreement. I’m unfortunately busy at work so I’m not articulating my position as well as I perhaps should, but I don’t think all debt or deficit spending is bad. It absolutely has a place and should be utilized. I don’t think this explains the US though. We’ve already hit 100% public debt to GDP (or 120% total debt to GDP) and I’m not seeing this slowing down. The last projections from the congressional budget going into reconciliation is a doubling of public debt in 10 years from what I remember.