A Fascinating Visualization Of How US Discretionary Spending Has Grown And Changed Over 55 Years

When they're not arguing about everything else, people in Washington love to argue about the federal budget. But how many of us non-wonks have a good sense of how big the budget really is, and how much of it goes to which programs? Using historical data from the Office of Management and Budget, Redditor transitmapper put together this fascinating visualization of how the US discretionary budget has grown and changed over time. The discretionary budget is set by appropriations bills and doesn't include mandatory entitlement spending. In other words, discretionary spending is subject to the desires and priorities of whoever's in political power at any given time, which becomes very clear as you watch the visualization unfold:

We sure do spend a lot of money on our military!

[Reddit]