I believe you are wrong about that. While defense spending is big, it's not the highest. Health and Human Services and Social Security are both significantly higher portions of the budget. Unless there's a bunch of "off the books" spending?
Well, the wars were off the books until Obama put them on but they are "over" now so that is money mostly already spent (like 1 trillion).
When I say black hole I mean money that is wasted. Health and Human Services and Social Security are things that benefit us while wars, our military, and homeland security not so much. Social Security for example is an entitlement that everyone pays into that has always run a surplus so it's paid for... Politicians raiding the fund is a different story.
Our bad foreign policy decisions of the last century are bleeding us dry. Wake up people! Ready for round three in Iraq?
No one said food stamps = social security but they both are social programs that benefit people.
Social Security is in fact an entitlement as in workers are "entitled" to their benefits by paying into the system. Republicans later smeared the word entitlement because it now also refers to welfare programs (entitled by law) so people get confused.
Yes but comparing to the military is unfair. These are two very different types of programs. Of course SS costs more, we're all paying massive amounts into it for our retirement.
Military on the other hand is spending congress controls and whether its 1 dollar or 1 trillion is by their whim. No one is explicitly paying into it. In these kinds of military vs "welfare" spending, removing SS from it makes perfect sense. It pays for itself, and then some (when congress isnt stealing from it). Military is all debts and spent money. Its doesn't pay for itself. It buys 1 trillion dollar jet programs that are the laughingstock of the world as our corruption and incompetence are clear to see.
You can easily see here in this extremely user-friendly document http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2... :-p