This graph, of per capita federal spending by the twenty-two states with the twenty-five largest metro areas, is ranked ordered by military spending first. Above the white line across the middle of the graph is the state's military spending and below the white line is the state's nonmilitary other federal spending. Notice how the military allocation is very unequal while the nonmilitary allocation is fairly equal across all the states. The black bars are the average military spending on top and the average nonmilitary spending on the bottom. This graph, from 1984 in the last decade of the Cold War, shows how 80% of the inequality of federal spending among the states is due to the military spending alone, giving immense political power to those who distribute those funds, even though military spending was only 25% of the total.