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What percentage of federal taxes goes to military spending?
Executive Summary
Across the supplied analyses, the most consistent estimate is that roughly 13% of the federal budget (and therefore about 13% of federal tax dollars) goes to national defense in recent years, though other calculations and definitions push that share as high as 20–24% depending on what programs are included and which year is measured. Different sources use different budget baselines, timeframes, and program definitions—producing a credible range from about 13% to roughly 24% of federal tax dollars.
1. What the competing claims actually say and why they matter
The supplied materials present several discrete claims: the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP)–style analysis states national defense was about 13% of the federal budget in FY2024, roughly $872 billion, and equates that share with federal tax dollars [1]. Other summaries cite ~13.3% for 2023 and note long-term swings from nearly 28% in 1987 down to near 11% in 2020–2021 [2]. By contrast, some outlets present broader definitions that include homeland security and related security spending and report about 20% of the federal budget going to defense and security [3], while older or alternative breakdowns have asserted that 24¢ of every income tax dollar went to the military in a given year [4]. These differences matter because they change public understanding of priorities and the scale of defense compared with other federal commitments.
2. How methodology drives the headline percentage
The gap between ~13% and ~20–24% arises from methodological choices: whether the figure counts only the Department of Defense base budget and explicit “national defense” line items, or whether it adds Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration, veterans’ benefits, foreign military financing, and war-related supplementals. The CBPP-style figure isolates national defense as a single budget function [1], while the higher ~20% figure uses a broader “defense and security” category that bundles multiple agencies and programs [3]. Older citations such as the “24¢ of every income tax dollar” statistic typically reflected different years and may have used income-tax-specific denominators rather than total federal receipts, which inflates or shifts the apparent share depending on the base used [4].
3. Dates and trends: the story over time
The supplied materials show notable volatility over decades: estimates reference peak defense shares near 27.9% in 1987 and troughs around 11% during 2020–2021 [2]. Recent year snapshots in the package put 2023–2024 defense shares near 13–13.3% when using the national defense line-item approach [1] [2]. One source emphasizes that aggregate post‑9/11 war costs and Pentagon increases push long‑term totals into the trillions, complicating single‑year comparisons [5]. The takeaway is that year-to-year budget dynamics, wartime supplementals, and policy choices meaningfully shift the percentage that tax dollars appear to send to military spending.
4. What different sources include — and what they omit
Some analyses explicitly exclude downstream or related spending: veteran health care and interest on debt incurred from past wars are sometimes left out of “national defense” tallies, producing the lower ~13% figure [1]. Conversely, sources that seek to capture the broader “militarism” footprint include Pentagon contractors, troop pay, housing, border enforcement, and homeland security, resulting in per‑taxpayer dollar tallies (e.g., dollars per taxpayer for militarism in 2023) or higher percentage claims [6] [4]. One supplied analysis notes large cumulative war spending and Pentagon base increases without giving a single percent of tax receipts, illustrating how some accounts emphasize cumulative or economic impact rather than an immediate share of annual revenues [5].
5. Reconciling the numbers for a policy‑useful answer
A policy‑useful reconciliation recognizes two consistent facts from the supplied items: when counting only the national defense budget function the figure is about 13% of total federal spending/revenues in 2023–2024 [1] [2]. When adopting a broader security definition that folds in DHS, TSA, veterans and related programs, the share moves into the ~20% range and certain income‑tax‑focused framings can produce claims near 24% for specific years or tax bases [3] [4]. Analysts and communicators should therefore state explicitly which programs are being counted and which denominator—total federal outlays, total receipts, or income‑tax revenues—is used.
6. Bottom line: the defensible range and recommended phrasing
Based on the supplied analyses, the defensible headline is that about 13% of federal tax dollars went to national defense in the most recent single‑year federal budget snapshots (2023–2024), while a broader security accounting lifts that to around 20%, and certain income‑tax‑specific or older breakdowns have produced figures near 24¢ per income‑tax dollar [1] [2] [3] [4]. For clarity, any statement about “what percentage of federal taxes” should specify the year and which programs are counted: otherwise the 13–24% range captures the legitimate variation documented in the supplied analyses.