Just checked, and Russia has a deficit and is projected to have a deficit next year, too.
Of course, Russia does not spend as much on transfer payments (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, etc). as the US does.
While Russia spends less dollars (rubles) than the US does on defense, its military and law enforcement spending is 39% of its budget.
Russia just passed a 25% increase in military spending for 2024, which will be the largest budget that Russia has ever had in its history. Military spending will overtake social spending for the first time in Russia in 2024.
US military spending is 12% of the budget.
The US has sent something like $75 billion to Ukraine over two years. Some of that is for military weapons and hardware, but that figure includes all sorts of other aid.
The US budget problem is not a result of 30 or 40 billion annually in aid to Ukraine. It is massive spending by both parties.
Every election the Americans listen to Democrats promise more spending and Republicans promise less. No matter whom we elect, they spend more, not less. Spending under Trump broke all historic records. Biden then went and broke them again. Biden and Trump are the two running, so whoever occupies the White House is going to contribute to making the problem worse, not better. And Congress is going to do nothing but grow the budget, in spite of all the silly shows we have seen with the Speaker's race and the "looming budget showdown" that turned into a whimper of nothingness.
Blaming the aid to Ukraine - put it in perspective - its like you making $40,000 a year, but your wife on the credit cards is running up $70,000 a year (and increasing spending on it every year), and you think the answer is in the 300 bucks she donated to the neighbors down the street. While you might not want her to donate that 300 bucks to the neighbors, it hardly gets to the root of your household's $30,000 spending deficit. (just reducing decimals from very round 4 trillion, 7 trillion, and 30 billion numbers).
Maybe you divorce her and get a new, Republican wife. She shows you how she clips coupons, which sets your mind at ease so that you ignore the $72,000 in new credit card spending she runs up for the year.
Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is to spend less.
Russia's entire budget for next year, the largest in its history, is $411 billion, and military spending is by far the largest budget item.
By way of comparison, the United States is projecting $6.9 trillion (why I used $7 trillion and $70,000 in my example of household spending, above). Our budget is seventeen times (17X) Russia's budget.
If the US cut its budget down by sixteen seventeenths, to $411 billion, we would have a huge budget surplus, permitting massive tax cuts, which would unleash huge economic growth with all the cash in the economy.
But Republicans would never stand for that. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are already almost $3 trillion (not next year's number, but last) and growing, that is, almost half of our bloated budget. Republicans would howl in outrage if that was touched.
So we focus on silly things like the Ukraine aid, which one can oppose if you want to, but it is laughable to think the budget issues in the US could be fixed by cutting it, even down to $0.
