in kind. Government spending or government expenditure can be divided into three primary groups, government consumption, transfer payments, and interest payments. Government consumption are government purchases of goods and services. Examples include road and infrastructure repairs, national defence, schools, healthcare, and government workers’ salaries. Investments in sciences and strategic technological innovations to serve the public needs. Transfer payments are government payments to individuals. Such payments are made without the exchange of good or services, for example Old Age Security payments, Employment Insurance benefits, veteran and civil service pensions, foreign aid, and social assistance payments. Subsidies to businesses are also included in this category. Interest payments are the interest paid to the holders of government bonds, such as Saving Bonds and Treasury Bills. National defense spending The United States spends vastly more than other countries on national defense. For example, In 2019 the United States approved a budget of 686.1 billion in discretionary military spending, China was second with an estimated 261 billion dollars in military spending. The table below shows the top 10 countries with the largest military expenditures as of 2015, the most recent year with publicly available data. As the table suggests, the United States spent nearly 3 times as much on the military as China, the country with the next largest military spending. The U.S. military budget dwarfed spending by all other countries in the top 10, with 8 out of countries spending less than $100 billion in 2016. In 2022, the omnibus spending package increased the military budget by another $42 billion further increasing the United States as the largest defense spenders. {| style="font-size:100%;" |- | style="width:50%; text-align:center;"| 'List by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute2017 Fact Sheet (for 2016)SIPRI Military Expenditure Database |} Healthcare and medical research Research Australia found 91% of Australians think 'improving hospitals and the health system' should be the Australian Government's first spending priority. Crowding 'in' also happens in university life science research Subsidies, funding and government business or projects like this are often justified on the basis of their positive return on investment. Life science crowding in contrasts with crowding out in public funding of research more widely: "10% increase in government R&D funding reduced private R&D expenditure by 3%...In Australia, the average cost of public funds is estimated to be $1.20 and $1.30 for each dollar raised (Robson, 2005). The marginal cost is probably higher, but estimates differ widely