The Growing Budget.

Uncle Sam has never had trouble spending the taxpayers' money. By 1960 it had more money to spend than ever: the federal budget grew from $42.6 billion in 1950 to $92.1 billion in 1959. After World War II the government had sharply reduced its expenditures on defense from a wartime high of $83 billion in 1945 to $42.7 billion in 1946. By 1950 national defense spending—at $13.7 billion—only consumed approximately 35 percent of federal government outlays. Although defense spending soared again during the Korean conflict by more than 75 percent, it fell again by 1960 to less than 60 percent. Payments to individuals, which in later decades often meant welfare or social security, remained at roughly 30 percent of the government's outlays during the 1950s. The budget category "All Other"—which included spending on education, highways, and, toward the end of the decade, nonmilitary space projects—started at...