This is an incredibly cool map of the FY09 budget. I didn't look over it in any detail, and I'm sure there are sort of little shockers to be found, but it's a pretty obvious lesson in governmental priorities when the Defense Department gets half of the chart to itself and State, including foreign aid, is a barely-noticeable blip. The entire State budget, in fact, is a shade less than procurement for the Army alone. If there's a succinct reason why diplomacy is one of our least effective tools, all we need to know is that defense spending is about 13 times the size of "diplomatic" spending (or whatever the hell you want to call it).
