How much do state, local and the federal US government spend each year

General Questions
#1

I am trying to figure out what percentage of tax money goes to healthcare. I read the government on various levels spends $550 billion a year. I also know the federal budget is 2.4 trillion. I think i read all 50 state budgets combined was around $600 billion but i don’t know the exact figure. This site

http://www.cbpp.org/10-22-03sfp2.htm

Says the combined deficit of all 50 states is 39 to 41 billion a year and this makes up 7.4-7.8% of their total budgets. Multiplied out that is about $530 billion, close to the $600 billion mark. I am having trouble finding info on all the city governments and their combined budgets. On one hand you’d assume local government are be a minor amount on top of state and federal as payroll taxes don’t send alot to them but it could it be gigantic as local government covers alot of local civil services.

#2

My $550 billion statement may’ve been low

http://home.earthlink.net/~almyatt/u_h_care.htm

Government expenditures accounted for 59.8% of total U.S. health care costs in 1999, according to a Harvard Medical School study published in July, 2002 in the journal Health Affairs…Estimated total U.S. health spending for 2002 is $5,427 per capita, with government’s share being $3,245.

$3245x290,809,777=943,677,726,365. Jesus, that doesn’t sound right.

#3

I can’t answer your question, but next year’s federal deficit is predicted to be in the 500 Billion neighborhood. That is unfunded spending, and another way to think about it is that they are spending 500 billion before the collect the first penny from you. So your number is WAY low.

#4

The Wisxon annual state budget is around 10 billion. You can find a summary on page 15 of this state government PDF document. The projection for 2005 is about 12.5 billion.

#5

Er, make that Wisconsin.

#6

This site says $646.7 billion in 2001. Doesn’t add up.

http://www.ebri.org/facts/0203fact.htm

#7

I’m not sure why you thinks that’s wrong. It’s just under a trillion dollars.

This Google cached page shows total health care expenditures for 2002 as $1.553 trillion. That would give government about 60% of the total costs.

Doesn’t sound unreasonable to me.

#8

Please disregard my responses. They were in response to the thread title about total budget amounts rather than that portion related to health care costs.

#9

Wesley: What are you trying to figure out–what percentage of government spending goes toward health care, or what percentage of money spent on health care is spent by government? Those are two very different questions.

#10

Both. I have a rough estimate of each. But with gov. spending on healthcare the figures range from $550-943 billion so i don’t know. I am pretty sure state & federal budgets combined come to about $3 trillion, i don’t know how much local governments add to that figure though.

#11

The Census Bureau publishes good tables of expenditure by state and local government. They even identify the “intergovernmental revenue”, which you have to subtract out to avoid double-counting many types of spending. For example, the feds reimburse the states for Medicaid expenditures, and state aid forms a large part of the budget of most school districts. Just subtract the intergovernmental revenue from the state and local total expenditures, and add the remaining net state and local expenditure to the federal total of about $2.2 trillion per year.