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Emily Kile
Mr. Hawkins
American Government P, Period 2
8 October, 2014
The Preamble and the Federal Budget: Are We Slicing the Pie Correctly?
What is the federal budget? The federal budget is the yearly plan for how the
US government will spend its money. After analyzing the federal budget, it was
evident that the money was dispersed into three different clusters; the Big Five, the
Middle Five, and the Little Guys. Although at first glance, the money may seem to
be being evenly dispersed throughout the three, when taking a deeper look, there is
clearly a fine line between what the government needs and what the government
wants. The real question is; is the United States distributing its money correctly? In
my opinion, after much research, the government could do a better job with the way
it allocates its money. In each of the three budget clusters, the U.S.
government should make adjustments in the way it is distributing money
of which include; changes involving the Big Five, changes involving the
Middle Five, and changes involving the Little Guys.
The largest category of the budget is known as The Big Five, which takes up
82% of the federal budget. The Big Five includes funds for Interest on National Debt,
Medicare, Medicaid and Health, Social Security, Defense, and Safety Net Programs
for Poor and Elderly. One of the changes that immediately came to my attention
was what a small portion of money the US spends on paying off national debt.
Shockingly, interest on national debt takes up only 6% of the 82% allocated to The

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Big Five. Evidence states, Interest on national debt is interest paid on the more
than $10 trillion the national government has borrowed over the years. (Document
C) With that being said, America only has $225 Billion set aside for paying off
national debt which leaves our country billions of dollars in debt every year. We
should spend less money on Medicare and Medicaid and allocate that money into
getting America out of debt and also, investing more money into Safety Net
programs which will help get more Americans on their feet and reduce the amount
of people who cannot afford Medicare by providing tax help for poor families,
additional money to the elderly and disabled, and low-income housing. (Document
C) However, other evidence states that As big as the budget is, there is never
enough money to satisfy all demands. (Document A) This phases a problem;
America is not dispersing the money it has correctly, despite the fact that we dont
have enough money to satisfy all needs, there are some that should be held of
higher priority than others. Paying off national debt will better our country in the
long run and is worth the loss of funds from other categories in The Big Five.
The second largest category of the budget is The Middle Five which
consumes 10% of the federal budget. The Middle Five includes funds for Veterans
Benefits and Services, Homeland Security, Justice, Transportation, and Education.
One of the things that immediately came to my attention was how much money was
allocated to Veterans Benefits and Service and how little was spent on supporting
education. Veterans Benefits and Services takes up 2.7% of the 10% allocated to
The Middle Five which is precisely $130 billion, while education only consumes 1.8%
of the budget and only gets $68 billion. Basically, Veterans Benefits and Services is
mostly disability benefits and medical services (Document D) for Veterans all over
America. On the other hand, we have Education which includes college aid and

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loans, special education programs, free lunch to students in need, antidiscrimination efforts, research, and special programs.(Document D) Which
category seem to be doing more for our country? Although all respect goes to those
who have served for our country, education is crucial if America wants to better
itself as a country. However, there are other funds within The Big Five that could
potentially transfer some of their money into education and would not suffer any
major loss. Transportation, for instance, takes up nearly the same amount of the
budget as Veterans Benefits and Services do. Transportation funds go towards
construction and maintenance of roads, bridges, airports and ports (Document D)
all of which are important if we want to maintain a generally nice and functioning
society. However, does America really need to spend $103 billion dollars on things
of this nature? Putting more emphasis on education, we are investing in students
who could potentially grow up to make America an even better functioning country;
education is worth investing into.
The smallest category of the budget is The Little Guys which takes up a
small 3% of the federal budget. The Little Guys include Natural Resources and
Environment, National Park Service, FBI, Energy, and General Science and Space
(NASA). One of the things that immediately stood out to me was how much money
our country spends on Natural Resources and Environment and how little it spends
on FBI. National Resources and Environment takes up precisely $43 billion while FBI
only consumes $8 billion of the federal budget. Natural Resources and Environment
includes conservation and protection of public lands, water, and mineral resources
(Document E) while FBI operates field offices in 58 cities to combat terrorism and
crime. (Document E) Although it is vitally important to maintain a healthy
environment, what is a healthy environment without protection from harm to it? FBI

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ensures protection from terrorists and those who are going to bring about ciaos to
our nation, without it, who knows what kind of dangerous position our country would
be in. That is precisely why the federal government should allocate more money
towards FBI and less money trying to protect lands and water.
Beyond forming a more perfect nation, the Preamble states that the
government is supposed to meet five different objectives; justice, domestic
tranquility, common defense, general welfare, and liberty. The Preamble gives us a
set of goals to compare our federal budget to, which was the basis for analyzing the
way America spends its money. In each of the three budget clusters, the U.S.
government should make adjustments in the way it is distributing money of which
include; changes involving the Big Five, changes involving the Middle Five, and
changes involving the Little Guys. Back to the question, is America slicing the pie
correctly? After much research, it is evident that our government could do a better
job at discovering what its needs and wants are and invest in more important things
that could provide a better future for our nation as a whole.