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The Black Budget, a Sense of Magnitudes

On October 28th, I wrote a blog post, “The NSA’s Rent Is Too Damn High,” in which I looked at the $52.6 billion price tag for America’s spook infrastructure – the so-called “black budget.” When allocated across every American taxpayer, this staggering sum comes out to $574 per taxpayer, per year.

But, there are other edifying ways of gaining perspective on such a whopping amount of money. Doing so is important. Indeed, according to John Maynard Keynes’ biographer, Lord Skidelsky, Keynes believed that a good economist must always have “a sense of magnitudes.”

We can get a sense of magnitudes by looking at this year’s black budget as a portion of the major sources of the federal government’s revenues. The table below tells that tale:

Source of Federal Revenue 2012 Amount $ Billion Black Budget $ Billion Black Budget as % of Revenue Source
Individual Income Taxes $1,132.21 $52.60 4.6%
Corporate Income Taxes $242.29 $52.60 21.7%
Social Insurance Taxes $845.31 $52.60 6.2%
Excise Taxes $79.06 $52.60 66.5%
Estate and Gift Taxes $13.97 $52.60 376.4%
Customs Duties $30.31 $52.60 173.6%
Miscellaneous Receipts $107.01 $52.60 49.2%
Deficit (Borrowing) $1,086.96 $52.60 4.8%
     Source: Congressional Budget Office
Author Steve H.Hanke
Tuesday March 22nd, 2016

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