Ne mutlu Turkum diyene!

 

"Benim fani vücudum elbet bir gün toprak olacaktır. Fakat Türkiye Cumhuriyeti ilelebet payidar ve muzaffer olacaktır." Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

ATATÜRK hakkında farklı bir bakış açısı...

Aşağıdaki yazıyı bir ortaokul öğrencisi okulunun duvarına yazmış.
İnanılmaz güzel ve farklı bir bakış açısı.
İyi de yapmış.
Bu ülkede yaşayan her insanın bağımsızlığını ve demokrasisini borçlu olduğu insan:

ATATÜRK...

Gençliğinde kot pantolon giyememiş. Sevgilisinin elinden tutup, hasılat rekorları kıran bir sinema filmine gidememiş...
Padişah ona Trablusgarp Cephesinde görev verdiğinde, lüks uçak şirketinin, first class koltuğunda viskisini yudumlayarak görev yerine gidememiş...
Halkına bağımsızlık fikrini anlatabilmek için kortej eşliğinde Mercedeslerle gezememiş Anadoluyu...
Kurtuluş hareketini başlatmak için 19 Mayısta Samsuna ayak basan ayağında spor ayakkabısı ya da kovboy çizmesi yokmuş...
Kazandığı her savaştan sonra savaş sahasına fırlayıp moral veren mini etekli ponpon kızlar da yokmuş...
Tarih kitaplarına bakılırsa, Yunanlıları İzmirden denize döktükten sonra timsah yürüyüşü de yapmamışlar...
Ülkesinde yapacağı devrimleri, unutmamak için not alacağı bir cep bilgisayarı olmadığı gibi, kendisine suikast girişiminde bulunacakları da cep telefonundan öğrenememiş!
Atatürk için üzülüyorum. Dağ gibi adam, bir radyo programına faks çekemeden,
İsmet Pasa için Safiye Ayladan bir istek parçası isteyemeden gitti …
Lozan Zaferinden sonra veya Cumhuriyetin ilanından sonra arabaya atlayıp,
sabahlara kadar korna çalıp, elinde bayraklarla sokaklarda tur atamadı. Evinin balkonuna çıkıp, bir şarjör mermiyi havaya sıkamadı.
Atatürke acıyorum...
Sen kalk, dört kadınla evlenebileceğin bir dönemde dünyaya gel, sonra değerini bilmeyip tek kadınla evlilik sistemini getir.
Aaaah ah... Çılgın diskolara gitmek, sabahlara kadar içip, içip rock yapmak,
babasının mercedesini alıp söyle bir Emirgan turu çekmek dururken...

Bunları yapmadı Atatürk...

Keyif çatmadı...

Tüm hayatını ülkesinin kurtuluşuna ve uygarlaşmasına harcadı...

İŞTE ONUN İÇİN BÜYÜK ADAMDI ATATÜRK...
HER FIRSAT ELİNDE VARDI.
O İSE SADECE BU MİLLETİN BAĞIMSIZLIĞINI İSTEDİ.

BÜTÜN SUÇU ; 2 KADEH RAKI IÇMEKTİ… O KADAR...

400 Sene Sonrasına Mektup - Mimar Sinan

Bir Mimar Sinan eseri olan Şehzadebası Cami'nin 1990'li yıllarda devam eden restorasyonunu yapan firma yetkililerinden bir inşaat mühendisi, caminin restorasyonu sırasında yaşadıkları bir olayı tv'de şöyle anlatmıştı.

Cami bahçesini çevreleyen havale duvarında bulunan kapıların üzerindeki kemerleri oluşturan taşlarda yer yer çürümeler vardı. Restorasyon programında bu kemerlerin yenilenmesi de yer alıyordu. Biz inşaat fakültesinde teorik olarak kemerlerin nasıl inşaat edildiğini öğrenmiştik fakat taş kemer inşaası ile ilgili pratiğimiz yoktu. Kemerleri nasıl restore edeceğimiz konusunda ustalarla toplantı yaptık. Sonuç olarak kemeri alttan yalayan bir tahta kalıp çakacaktık. Daha sonra kemeri yavaş yavaş söküp yapım teknikleri ile ilgili notlar alacaktık ve yeniden yaparken bu notlardan faydalanacaktık.

Kalıbı yaptık. Sökmeye kemerin kilit taşından başladık. Taşı yerinden çıkardığımızda hayretle iki taşın birleşme noktasında olan silindirik bir boşluğa yerleştirilmiş bir cam şişeye rastladık.

Şişenin içinde dürülmüş beyaz bir kâğıt vardı. Şişeyi açıp kâğıda baktık. Osmanlıca bir şeyler yazıyordu. Hemen bir uzman bulup okuttuk. Bu bir mektup idi ve Mimar Sinan tarafından yazılmıştı. Şunları söylüyordu:

"Bu kemeri oluşturan taşların ömrü yaklaşık 400 senedir. Bu müddet zarfında bu taşlar çürümüş olacağından siz bu kemeri yenilemek isteyeceksiniz. Büyük bir ihtimalle yapı teknikleri de değişeceğinden bu kemeri nasıl yeniden inşaa edeceğinizi bilemeyeceksiniz. İşte bu mektubu ben size, bu kemeri nasıl inşa edeceğinizi anlatmak için yazıyorum."

Koca Sinan mektubunda böyle başladıktan sonra o kemeri inşa ettikleri taşları Anadolu´nun neresinden getirttiklerini söyleyerek izahlarına devam ediyor ve ayrıntılı bir biçimde kemerin inşaasını anlatıyordu.

Bu mektup bir inşanın, yaptığı işin kalıcı olması için gösterebileceği çabanın insanüstü bir örneğidir. Bu mektubun ihtişamı, modern çağın insanlarının bile zorlanacağı taşın ömrünü bilmesi, yapı tekniğinin değişeceğini bilmesi, 400 sene dayanacak kâğıt ve mürekkep kullanması gibi yüksek bilgi seviyesinden gelmektedir. Şüphesiz bu yüksek bilgiler de o koca mimarin erişilmez özelliklerindendir. Ancak erişilmesi gerçekten zor olan bu bilgilerden çok daha muhteşem olan 400 sene sonraya çözüm üreten sorumluluk duygusudur.

 

TOP SECRET AMERICA

Source: Washington Post

A hidden world, growing beyond control

 

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/

From the Executive Summary of the Washington Post’s “Top Secret America” series...

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation’s other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.

* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year - a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.

These are not academic issues; lack of focus, not lack of resources, was at the heart of the Fort Hood shooting that left 13 dead, as well as the Christmas Day bomb attempt thwarted not by the thousands of analysts employed to find lone terrorists but by an alert airline passenger who saw smoke coming from his seatmate.

They are also issues that greatly concern some of the people in charge of the nation’s security.

“There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that - not just for the CIA, for the secretary of defense - is a challenge,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said in an interview with The Post last week.

Underscoring the seriousness of these issues are the conclusions of retired Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, who was asked last year to review the method for tracking the Defense Department’s most sensitive programs. Vines, who once commanded 145,000 troops in Iraq and is familiar with complex problems, was stunned by what he discovered.

“I’m not aware of any agency with the authority, responsibility or a process in place to coordinate all these interagency and commercial activities,” he said in an interview. “The complexity of this system defies description.”

The result, he added, is that it’s impossible to tell whether the country is safer because of all this spending and all these activities. “Because it lacks a synchronizing process, it inevitably results in message dissonance, reduced effectiveness and waste,” Vines said. “We consequently can’t effectively assess whether it is making us more safe.”

Can Yücel' den TERSİNE DÜNYA

Yaşamın en tatsız tarafı sona eriş seklidir...
Şüphesiz ki yaşamı tersten yaşamak daha güzel, hatta mükemmel olurdu.
Nasıl mı?
Cami'de uyanıyorsunuz.
Bir tahta sandık içerisinde, herkes karşınızda saf durmuş, iyiliğinize dua
ediyor ve tüm haklar helal edilmiş vaziyette tabuttan doğruluyorsunuz,
yaşlı, olgun, ve ağırbaşlı olarak.
Herkes etrafınızda, büyük bir itibar, iltifatl ar, çocuklar torunlar hepsi
hazır.
Arabanıza kurulup evinize gidiyorsunuz.
Doğar doğmaz devlet size maaş bağlıyor, aylık veya üç ayda bir maaşınızı
alıyorsunuz.
Ne güzel, hazır maaş, hazır ev...
Altmışlı yaslara kadar garanti, huzur içinde yaşıyorsunuz.
Sağlığınız gittikçe düzeliyor, kaslar güçleniyor, kuvvetleniyorsunuz.
Bir gün çalışmak istiyorsunuz ve ise ilk başladığınız gün size hoş geldin
hediyesi olarak bir plaket ve altın kol saati veriyor patronunuz.. ve
genel müdürlük veya bunun gibi yüksek bir makamdan tecrübelibir insan
olarak ise başlıyorsunuz.
Herkes karsınızda el pençe diva n...
Vücudunuzda da bazı hoşa giden hareketler de başlıyor.
Gittikçe zayıflıyor forma giriyorsunuz.
Diğer hormonal aktiviteler artıyor, fevkalade.....aman ne güzel günler
başlıyor... derken bir gün patron size artık üniversiteye gitsen daha iyi
olur diyor.
Bu arada babanız ortaya çıkmış, 'fazla çalıştın' diyor 'artık eve dön, işi
bırak, okumaya basla, harçlığın benden olsun...'
Keyfe bakar mısınız?
Okuduğunuz dersler gittikçe kolaylaşıyor. Ekmek elden, su gölden bir dönem
başlıyor.
Partiler, diskotekler, kızların sayısı artıyor.
Derken anne ve babanız sizi götürüp getirmeye başlı yor, araba kullanma
derdi de yok artık....
Günün birinde sizi okuldan da alıyorlar, 'evde otur, keyfine bak,
oyuncaklarınla oyna' diyorlar.
Mamanız ağzınıza veriliyor, zaman zaman altınızı bile temizliyorlar, hatta
bu durum alışkanlık yaratıyor ve hiç tuvaletkullanmamaya başlıyorsunuz.
Derken anneniz bir gün size süt verme kararını alıyor ve başka bir keyifli
dönem başlıyor.
Mama artık her yerde, her an ve en taze şeklinde hazır.
Bir gün karanlık ılık ve sıcak bir ortama giriyorsunuz. Beslenmek için
ağzınızı açmaya dahi gerek yok, bir kordondan besleniyor, sıcacık,
yumuşacık, gürültü ve patırtısız bir ortamda yaşıyorsunuz.
Küçülüyor, küçülüyor, ufacık bir hücre halini alıyorsunuz.
Veeeeee....
En güzeli deeee......
Günün birinde müthiş keyifli bir geceyle hayatiniz bitiyor...

Can YÜCEL

Developing Mindful Leaders

Is mindfulness the new leadership imperative?

Just read this fascinating, brilliant HBR blog by Polly LaBarre. It poses some pretty provocative questions and challenges the status quo of leadership development today. While the whole article resonates, I reacted with an especially loud "Yes!" to:

What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed that they were already full of potential...

I applaud anytime organizations provide opportunities for people to cultivate capacities for well-being in people which mindfulness certainly does. I think the positive effects that occur in the person, as well as in the relationships among co-workers can be furthered when changes are also made to the "systems and processes" in creating the conditions for mindfulness and well being.

I think bringing mindfulness into organizational life and leadership should include attention to both changes in the "hearts and minds" of people and the structures and processes in which they participate. For me this would signal a shift from mindful leaders to mindful leadership--leadership being embedded in the property of people working together not just only in the traits and behaviors of individuals in position of power and responsibility.

There are a number of barriers to mindful leadership in organizations today, not the least of which is resistance to this esoteric ideal. However, I suspect that one large obstacle to incorporating mindful leadership into an organization's systems and processes is a lack of practical, tactical tools or models, which leaders can follow. That is, even if an organizational leader(s) did want to foster a culture of mindfulness, they wouldn't know how to recruit others to this cause and develop their own capacity in it

Published in HBR Blog Network by Polly LaBarre 3:32 PM December 30, 2011

Organizations invest billions annually on a success curriculum known as "leadership development," which ends up leaving so much on the table. Training and development programs almost universally focus factory-like on inputs and outputs — absorb curriculum, check a box; learn a skill, advance a rung; submit to assessment, fix a problem. Likewise, they leave too many people behind with an elite selection process that fast tracks "hi-pos" and essentially discards the rest. And they leave most people cold with flavor of the month remedies, off sites, immersions, and excursions — which produce little more than a grim legacy of fat binders gathering dust on shelves.

What if, instead of stuffing people with curricula, models, and competencies, we focused on deepening their sense of purpose, expanding their capability to navigate difficulty and complexity, and enriching their emotional resilience? What if, instead of trying to fix people, we assumed that they were already full of potential and created an environment that promoted their long-term well-being?

In other words, what if cultivating a successful inner life was front and center on the leadership agenda?

That was the question Todd Pierce asked himself in 2006 after years of experimenting with the full menu of trainings, meetings, and competency models in his capacity as CIO of biotechnology giant Genentech. He had just scoured the development reports of some 700 individuals in the IT department and found that "not one of them had an ounce of inspiration. I remember sitting there and saying, 'There's got to be a At the time, Pierce was benefiting personally from work with a personal coach and had recently woken up to the power of the practice of mindfulness. He called in a kindred soul, Pamela Weiss, a long-time executive coach and meditation teacher, to help design an experiment that would cast out the traditional approach to leadership development to focus instead on helping people grow.
"If you want to transform an organization it's not about changing systems and processes so much as it's about changing the hearts and minds of people," says Weiss. "Mindfulness is one of the all-time most brilliant technologies for helping to alleviate human suffering and for bringing out our extraordinary potential as human beings."

Pierce and Weiss distilled a set of principles that form the basis of what became the "Personal Excellence Program" (PEP), now heading into its sixth year inside Genentech (Pierce left the company this fall after 11 years to join salesforce.com). Together, these pillars offer up a short course in unleashing human capability, resilience, compassion, and well-being (and they're unpacked in even more detail in Weiss and Pierce's entry).

1. Developing people is a process — not an event. "Development is all too often considered a one-time event," says Weiss. She and Pierce designed PEP as a ten-month-long journey that unfolds in three phases, with big group meetings, regular small group sessions, individual coaching, peer coaching, and structured solo practice.

2. People don't grow from the neck up. Too much training focuses on the the mind — it's about transferring content. "We talk about the head, the heart, and the body," says Weiss. In fact, they do more than talk about it — they enact it every day at the start of every meeting. The "3-center check in" is the gateway drug to mindfulness. As Weiss describes it: "You close your eyes for a moment and you notice, 'What am I thinking — what's happening in my head center,' then you notice, 'What am I feeling — what's happening in my heart center.' then, 'What am I feeling — what's happening in my body.' It's a way in which people start paying attention and practicing mindfulness without ever practicing meditation."

3. Put mindfulness at the center (but don't call it that!). Weiss and her team were careful to keep the language of specific belief systems and religions out of PEP. The program revolves around three phases: reflection on and selection of a specific quality or capacity you want to work on (patience, decisiveness, courage); three months of cultivating the capacity for self-observation; and the hard work of turning insight into deliberate, dedicated, daily practice.

4. It's hard to grow alone. "People grow best in community," says Weiss. "People don't grow as well just reading a book, getting an online training, or just taking in information. There's an exponential impact in having people grow and learn together." That's why the PEP "pod" (small 6-8 person group) is the main vehicle throughout the year.

5. Everybody deserves to grow. Pierce felt strongly that PEP should be available to people across the board — not just the usual "stars" — and that it should be voluntary. "The program is by application and not declaration," he says.

As PEP heads into its sixth year at Genentech, some 800 people have participated in the program. (Weiss added a graduate curriculum and a student training program to create "PEPtators" as few people want the journey to end.) The impact has been nothing short of transformative for individuals and organization alike. When Pierce took over the IT department in 2002, its employee satisfaction scores were at rock bottom; four years into the program, the department ranked second in the company and is now consistently ranked among the best places to work in IT In the world (even in the wake of Genentech's 2009 merger with Roche Group — always a turbulent and dispiriting experience).

Pierce attributes that to "the emotional intelligence of people and the capacity to change" developed in PEP. But don't take his word for it. The data-obsessed Pierce commissioned a third path impact report on PEP. It came in glowing: 10-20% increase in employee satisfaction, 50% increase in employee collaboration, conflict management, and communication; 12% increase in customer satisfaction; and nearly three times the normal business impact.

"Through PEP we have created a smarter, more agile, and more responsive organization," says Pierce. "The reduction of suffering, the capacity to deal with difficulties, the level of engagement — these things are very powerful and you can't call a meeting to get them or give people stock options and have them. These are skills and qualities you have to cultivate and practice."

So how's this for a new year's resolution for hard-charging leaders: turn every ringing, pinging, tweeting, and blinking thing off — especially your mind — and just breathe.

More blog posts by Polly LaBarre

What is a P.I.D or Project Charter?

I believe as PM’s we believe the project charter is the essential document for your projects. It’s the first document that will your project life, dictates the tone and direction of your project and the one document where you may revert back to for referencing project expectations. However the charter is meaningless unless you have stakeholder “approval”.

Without a charter the PM and authorities can’t be established or defined... Among many other critical items; It's not a formality, it's a necessity. I’ve seen various forms of Project Charters from formal to informal and inherited projects without project charters and/or plans creating a lack structure. The lack of structure places a burden on both parties the customer and the PM. It’s cost effective to include the Charter in your projects and should be a basic tool in your PM tool belt. A project charter can be a one-page document, but it can save you a lot of time and money. Here is why:

What is a Project Charter? 

According to PMI's PMBOK , a project charter is "a document that formally authorizes a project and documents the initial requirements that satisfies stakeholders' needs and expectations".  

When is a Project Charter Written?

A project charter is written during the initiation phase of a project.

What is the Content of a Project Charter? 

I usually include the following in a project charter:  

·       Why the project is needed  

·       A description of the project  

·       A rough (+/- 50%) estimate of what the project will cost  

·       A justification (economic or other) of the project 

What is the Purpose of a Project Charter?

The purpose of the project charter is to provide the project sponsor with sufficient information so that the project can be formally authorized. Once the project charter is approved, the project team can then proceed to develop the project plan. The project charter provides a go/no-go decision to develop the project plan.

Project Plan Without Project Charter

Imagine the following (well known) scenario: company X requests Project Management Office Y to write a project plan. The PMO charges the company $ 30,000 to write the plan and gets the job. When the project plan is finished, it is presented to the company. The project plan contains the project budget. The project budget is $ 5,000,000. This amount surprises the company, since they had in mind that the project would cost at most $ 800,000. The project sponsor of company X can’t approve the project because of the high budget.

The Importance of the Project Charter

Had company X taken the time to approach a PMO to develop a project charter, they would have known that a +/- 50% estimate for this project is around say $4,500.000. With such a rough estimate, the sponsor would have never authorized the writing of a project plan. Company X would have saved time and $ 90,000.

How the Project Charter is positioned versus a Contract when you are in a client-supplier relationship? 

At the end of the day, the contract is the ultimate place to refer and in such the Project Charter shouldn't be a re-statement of the contract. In another words the project charter is a document that exists within the supplier organization and is provided by a sponsoring business manager (who accepts the cost, risk, etc. of creating the deliverable) for the project manager (who is empowered by the sponsor). In the case of an external contract, the sponsor in the supplier organization has decided they should respond to and deliver against the contract and, with the PM, will aim to ensure that the project then complies with the contract; internally, the work of the PM is authorized, however, by the charter which may for example impose additional constraints and rules that are not in the contract.

Where Did an American's Federal Tax Dollars Go in 2011?

The federal government collects taxes in order to finance various public services. As policymakers and citizens weigh key decisions about revenues and expenditures, it is instructive to examine what the government does with the money it collects.
In fiscal year 2011, the federal government spent $3.6 trillion, amounting to 24 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). While the level of 2011 expenditures - as a share of GDP - remains high due to the economic downturn, the composition of the budget largely resembles the patterns of recent years. Of that $3.6 trillion, $2.2 trillion was financed by federal tax revenues, and $83 billion by excess profits on assets held by the Federal Reserve. The remaining $1.3 trillion was financed by borrowing; this deficit will ultimately be paid for by future taxpayers. (See box for the recession's impact on the budget.) As shown in the graph below, three major areas of spending each make up about one-fifth of the budget:

• Defense and international security assistance: In 2011, 20 percent of the budget, or $718 billion, paid for defense and security-related international activities. The bulk of the spending in this category reflects the underlying costs of the Department of Defense and other security-related activities. The total also includes the cost of supporting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, funding for which totaled $159 billion in 2011.
• Social Security: Another 20 percent of the budget, or $731 billion, paid for Social Security, which provided retirement benefits averaging $1,229 per month to 35.6 million retired workers in December 2011. Social Security also provided benefits to 2.9 million spouses and children of retired workers, 6.3 million surviving children and spouses of deceased workers, and 10.6 million disabled workers and their eligible dependents in December 2011.
• Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP: Three health insurance programs - Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) - together accounted for 21 percent of the budget in 2011, or $769 billion. Nearly two-thirds of this amount, or $486 billion, went to Medicare, which provides health coverage to around 48 million people who are over the age of 65 or have disabilities. The remainder of this category funds Medicaid and CHIP, which in a typical month in 2011 provided health care or long-term care to about 60 million low-income children, parents, elderly people, and people with disabilities. Both Medicaid and CHIP require matching payments from the states.

Two other categories together account for another fifth of federal spending:

• Safety net programs: About 13 percent of the federal budget in 2011, or $466 billion, went to support programs that provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardship. Spending on safety net programs declined in both nominal and real terms between 2010 and 2011 as the economy continued to improve and initiatives funded by the 2009 Recovery Act began to expire.
  
  These programs include: the refundable portion of the earned-income and child tax credits, which assist low- and moderate-income working families through the tax code; programs that provide cash payments to eligible individuals or households, including Supplemental Security Income for the elderly or disabled poor and unemployment insurance; various forms of in-kind assistance for low-income families and individuals, including food stamps, school meals, low-income housing assistance, child-care assistance, and assistance in meeting home energy bills; and various other programs such as those that aid abused and neglected children.
  
  Such programs keep millions of people out of poverty each year. A Center analysis shows that government safety net programs kept some 25 million people out of poverty in 2010. Without any government income assistance, either from safety net programs or other income supports like Social Security, the poverty rate would have been nearly double in 2010 (28.6 rather than 15.5 percent).
• Interest on the national debt: The federal government must make regular interest payments on the money it has borrowed to finance past deficits - that is, on the national debt held by the public, which reached $10 trillion by the end of fiscal 2011. In 2011, these interest payments claimed $230 billion, or about 6 percent of the budget.
  

  2009-2011 Budget Outcomes Skewed by the Recession

  Due to one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression - and the policies enacted to combat it - 2009-2011 tax and spending levels diverged from recent patterns. Federal revenues plunged to 15 percent of GDP in 2009 and remained at 15 percent through 2011, the lowest levels in decades. The efforts to prevent collapse of the financial system and to deal with the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the automatic expansion of programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps (which always grow during economic downturns to meet rising need), and spending from the February 2009 stimulus package together pushed federal outlays to 25 percent of GDP in 2009 and 24 percent of GDP in 2010 and 2011. As a result, deficits reached record levels.
  It will take the economy several years to fully recover, and during that time federal revenues and expenditures will continue to differ from historical experience. However, the composition of the budget in 2011 largely resembles recent federal spending patterns.
  
  As the graph shows, the remaining fifth of federal spending goes to support a wide variety of other public services. These include providing health care and other benefits to veterans and retirement benefits to retired federal employees, assuring safe food and drugs, protecting the environment, and investing in education, scientific and medical research, and basic infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and airports. A very small slice of this remaining 19 percent - about 1 percent of the total budget - goes to non-security programs that operate internationally, including programs that provide humanitarian aid.
  
  While critics often decry "government spending," it is important to look beyond the rhetoric and determine whether the actual public services that government provides are valuable. To the extent that such services are worth paying for, the only way to do so is ultimately with tax revenue. Consequently, when thinking about the costs that taxes impose, it is essential to balance those costs against the benefits the nation receives from public services.
  

Appendix

We based our estimates of spending in fiscal year 2011 on the most recent historical data released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). (The federal fiscal year 2011 runs from October 1, 2010 to September 30, 2011.)
The broad expenditure categories presented in this paper were constructed on the basis of classifications commonly used by budget agencies. The categories are constructed by grouping related programs and activities into broad functions, which are further broken down into subfunctions. The details of how the categories used in this paper were constructed from those functions and subfunctions are described below.
Defense and International security assistance: The largest component of this category is the national defense function (050). In addition, this category includes the international security assistance subfunction (152) of the international affairs function.
Social Security: This category consists of all expenditures in the Social Security function (650), including benefits and administrative costs.
Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP: This category consists of the Medicare function (570), including benefits, administrative costs, and premiums, as well as the "Grants to States for Medicaid" account and the "Children's health insurance fund" account (both in function 550).
Safety net programs: This category of programs includes all programs in the income security function (600) except those that fall in the following two subfunctions: federal employees' retirement and disability (602) and general retirement and disability insurance (601).
Interest on debt: This category contains the net interest function (900).
Everything else: This category includes all federal expenditures not included in one of the five categories defined above. The subcomponents of this category that are displayed in the graph are defined as follows:

• Benefits for federal retirees and veterans: This subcategory combines the veterans' benefits and services function (700) and the federal employee retirement and disability subfunction (602, which is part of the income security function).
• Transportation: This subcategory consists of the entire transportation function (400).
• Education: The education subcategory combines three subfunctions of the education, training, employment, and social services function: elementary, secondary, and vocational education; higher education; and research and general educational aids (subfunctions 501, 502, and 503 respectively).
• Scientific and medical research: This subcategory consists of the general science, space, and technology function (250), and the health research and training subfunction (552).
• Non-security international: This subcategory consists of the international affairs function (150) except for international security assistance, which is included with defense, above.
• All other: This subcategory consists of all other federal expenditures.