The Preamble and the Federal Budget: Are We Slicing the Pie Correctly?
By Mahiro Fukushima
People and companies set goals in order to be successful. America, also did the same thing. They came up with the Preamble. The Preamble is the goals of the constitution, created to make a better perfect union. They include establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, providing common defence, promoting general welfare, and securing liberty. If the Preamble provides different goals to make a better union, the federal budget should follow the rules to make a more perfect union. The federal budget is the yearly spending of money. The question is: Are we spending money on the right things and matching the goals of the Preamble? In each budget cluster -- the Big Five, the Middle Five, and the Little Guys -- the US government should make adjustments in the way it is distributing money. First, the Big Five needs some changes. In 2012, the 5 budget categories and their percents of the total budget were Medicare/Medicaid (22%), Social Security (20%), defence (19%), Safety Net Programs (15%), and interest on national debt (6%) (Doc C). In this category, the most important change is to decrease Medicare/Medicaid spending by 5% and increase the spending in the Safety Net Programs by 5%. This is the right thing to do because…show more content… There are some changes needed in here too. In 2012, the 5 major categories and their percentages were: National Resources and Environment (1%), General Science and Space (1%), energy (1%), FBI (0.3%), and National Park Services (0.1%). The most important change in this cluster is to decrease Natural Resources and Environments by 0.7% and increase FBI by 0.7%. This will be the right thing to do because we need more protection of the country. The FBI needs more money to protect us from terrorists and criminals. This fits a goal of the Preamble because we are ensuring domestic tranquility by giving money to the