It's worth taking a look at the federal budget in detail sometime. Politicians love to argue and make a big deal about relatively small outlays, in comparison Social security + medicare/medicaid = 48% of spending, with military you have 66%. Non-military discretionary is only 17% which includes all of the department of the interior, including the USGS.
The US government spends money in odd ways so you can say all sorts of odd things. Truth is education spending (1T) is more than direct military spending unless you include pensions and heathcare for military workers. It's also larger than social security.
Sure in theory state and local spending are seperate but in practice a lot of state and local spending is tied to the federal government.
