Does anyone know of any site where one can see what the government budget is broken down into? Like we have X billion and Y billion goes to agriculture from which Z million goes to conservation, A million goes into land restoration, B million goes into pure water efforts, and C million goes into crop recovery.
I’m curious, because each time we have a budget cut, it seems that major services get cut, like medical, police, fire departments and social programs. So, what other programs do the monies fund? I don’t recall, during the last crunch, there being any cuts for the funding of the arts, or cuts in funds for restoration of old buildings, or cuts in corporate underwriting or cuts in corporate welfare.
A short (and somewhat disgruntled) answer is that the politicians put the cuts where they hurt the most in order to make tax cuts unpopular.
A longer answer is that government spending is divided into discretionary and mandatory spending. Mandatory spending has been mandated – that is, it must be spent as directed. The mandates usually come as a result of legislation passed to support a popular cause. The remaining budget is discretionary. It can be spent anywhere the legislature decides to spend it. It frequently occurs that non-essential, expensive programs are mandated. When the budget cuts come they are not affected, while essential services like public safety, education, transportation, etc., are all discretionary so that is where the money is taken from.
Note that this magnifies the impact of the budget cut. If a ten percent cut is applied to only half the budget, that half gets an effective twenty percent cut.