Question

According to the pie chart, which function consumed the largest portion of government expenditures in 2003?

Answer 1

Yes. thank you. That is much clearer. The largest expenditure was social security, but it's not isolated. Medicare and Medicaid are set up to go hand in hand with social security so you are really talking about 3 tines on the same fork. There are choices with this question and they should be listed. In a previous question that I answered, the example that turned out to be true (or I thought was true) was senior citizens drawing a pension from social security.

That is no trivial amount of money. My stats tell me that (judging by the friends we have in the United States) the average pension is about 1000 a month. That adds up to a lot money being paid out to a lot of people. Added to that, we are living much longer than expected and our health care costs are rising as we get older. Just ask me about that and be prepared to hear about the golden years which are sometimes not so golden.

The problem is that these payments are called entitlements and they are ruinously expensive. But it is not the fault of senior citizens. They have paid into social security their entire working life and they have paid into Medicare and Medicaid as well, and it is only fair that they be able to draw out what they have paid in. They cannot help that governments have mismanaged the funds that they have paid in. [It's true here in Canada where I live as well].