[jbooth]

500 is the new 700? We definitely spend over 500 billion on the military.

For the last 8 years or so, national education spending has been pretty much flatlined, or even declining in real dollars. Military spending has been skyrocketing.

And yes. I don't believe kicking teachers in the teeth is a good idea. If you have a math degree, you can get paid twice as much to work on some non-functional crap for a defense contractor as you can as a teacher. That's not the same thing. Defense is far more bloated. Meanwhile, we're sliding on every international metric of education. I'd suggest reading Kristof today if you want some neat statistics.

[yummyfajitas]

The data I found was from 2004-2005. For 2008 (the last year for which full data is available), the relevant numbers are $730B defence, $860B education. You could have discovered this yourself if you spent even a minute or two googling.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_education_spending_20...

It would appear that education is even more bloated than the military. As you say, "we're sliding on every international metric of education," but the military is still #1 (by a wide margin). Abiding by your philosophy of targeting the big ticket items for criticism and leaving the smaller ticket items alone, will you now focus your critiques on education and disregard the military?

[jbooth]

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/breakdown

http://www.christopherchantrill.com/

http://www.deathandtaxesposter.com/

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711