Do you have any idea how much the US government allocates for its national security spending? I am a regular reader of TomDispatch. TomDispatch was founded by Tom Engelhardt in 2001. It publishes articles on “subjects ranging from the American way of war and this country’s “forever wars” to economic inequality to the climate crisis.”

On July 7, William D. Hartung wrote an article on Fueling the Warfare State. It caught my attention. So much so that I created several charts to highlight his subtitle: America’s $1.4 Trillion “National Security” Budget Makes Us Ever Less Safe. In his article he explains in detail that we do spend #1.4 trillion each year on national security. William D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and the author most recently of “Pathways to Pentagon Spending Reductions: Removing the Obstacles.” He regularly publishes articles on TomDispatch.

We spend a mind-boggling amount on national defense, the military (industrial complex) and national security. Hartung’s article not only tells us how much, but gives us details of the amount spent by agencies and departments. And he provides us with a running total of the amount spent. After reading his article, I decided to makes a couple of charts to show his findings visually.

A Pareto Chart of National Security Spending

The chart in Figure 1 identifies the eight categories of spending identified by Hartung in his article. I’ve used a pareto chart to show how much is spent by each department or agency in the bar graph, as well as the cumulative total by the line graph. He points out in his article that the Biden administration submitted $813 billion for national defense. He then added:

It was, in fact, an astonishing figure by any measure — more than two-and-a-half times what China spends; more, in fact, than (and hold your hats for this one!) the national security budgets of the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined. And yet the weapons industry and hawks in Congress are now demanding that even more be spent. 

William D. Hartung, “Fueling the Warfare State.” TomDispatch, July 7. 2022.

Running Total of Spending on National Security

The second chart is shown in Figure 2. This bar graph shows the amount each category of government is funded, as well as the running total of funding for national security by the US government. The US spends $1.4 trillion on national security, which is nearly twice as much as what is spent on civic programs such education, environmental protection, health and welfare.