Yeah, 75% is pure nonsense. 50% of the budget is social security and medicare/medicaid/CHIP/marketplace subsidies, which are almost entirely locked in. Maybe at the margin policy can adjust this somewhat, especially the marketplace subsidies portion. 16% is defense spending, which are decisions made by the military bureaucracy with a little bit of pork barrel politics. Maybe they could adjust the growth rate of that up or down 5%. 10% is safety net and welfare, 6% is interest on the national debt, and 8% is pensions that have already been agreed to. 11% of the budget is for the rest of the government’s services, and most of those budgets are requested by the bureaucracies and individually fulfilled plus or minus some percent. Then, the president has to share the responsibilities for setting those budgets with the senate and congress. I would be surprised if 15% of the budget went to different people under Obama than under Jon McCain, and, I think in terms of realistic impact, where very similar entities have relatively the same impact on my political views, the number is probably in the single-digit percentages.
Also, I would like to point out for Gleb’s benefit that “tenure-track professor” sounds worse than simply “professor” for the same reason that “junior carpenter” sounds worse than “carpenter.” Most people’s availability heuristic is not that the typical professor is not on the tenure track. The idea wouldn’t even be salient except that “tenure-track” was mentioned.
Yeah, 75% is pure nonsense. 50% of the budget is social security and medicare/medicaid/CHIP/marketplace subsidies, which are almost entirely locked in. Maybe at the margin policy can adjust this somewhat, especially the marketplace subsidies portion. 16% is defense spending, which are decisions made by the military bureaucracy with a little bit of pork barrel politics. Maybe they could adjust the growth rate of that up or down 5%. 10% is safety net and welfare, 6% is interest on the national debt, and 8% is pensions that have already been agreed to. 11% of the budget is for the rest of the government’s services, and most of those budgets are requested by the bureaucracies and individually fulfilled plus or minus some percent. Then, the president has to share the responsibilities for setting those budgets with the senate and congress. I would be surprised if 15% of the budget went to different people under Obama than under Jon McCain, and, I think in terms of realistic impact, where very similar entities have relatively the same impact on my political views, the number is probably in the single-digit percentages.
Also, I would like to point out for Gleb’s benefit that “tenure-track professor” sounds worse than simply “professor” for the same reason that “junior carpenter” sounds worse than “carpenter.” Most people’s availability heuristic is not that the typical professor is not on the tenure track. The idea wouldn’t even be salient except that “tenure-track” was mentioned.
Budget source