Overspent and Overextended: Why is Washington spending so much on the military?

[Marcus Bryant]

http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/07/military-spending-so-what

[Winehole23]

The military budget is the price we pay for the nation’s foreign policy. The U.S. currently is spending nearly as much as the rest of the world. In real terms, Washington is spending more today than at any time during the Cold War, the Korean War, or the Vietnam War.


Using 2000 for constant dollars, the U.S. devoted $774.6 billion to the military in 1945, the last year of World War II. In 1953, the last year of the Korean War, military outlays ran $416.1 billion. Peak expenditures during the Vietnam War hit $421.3 billion in 1968.


Expenditures as a percentage of GDP have fallen because the U.S. economy has grown, not because military outlays have dropped.


U.S. outlays per capita dramatically outpace those of other nations. My Cato Institute colleague Chris Preble figures that in 2010 citizens in America will devote more than five times as much as Germans, about eight times as much as Japanese, and more than 27 times as much as Chinese.


America possesses the most sophisticated nuclear arsenal and most powerful conventional force. Washington’s ability to intervene is unparalleled: the U.S. possesses 11 carrier groups. Russia has one. India has one. There are no others.

[boutons_deux]

Military budget is corporate socialism, like so much of the federal budget that tea partiers NEVER even mention while going after Magic Negro for doing the same spending that Repugs do.

Read an article a few weeks ago where an IG said the military had almost no financial controls, auditing, doesn't know or care where the money goes. They know they'll get their $600B and a gold-plated existence year in and year out.

Any politician trying to rein in military waste is intimidated and destroyed as "weak on national security" by Repug and neo-c*nt death-mongers and MIC lackeys, many of whom are of course revolving-door, double-dipping Generals and Admirals.

The entire military expense area is just another area where corps compromise/buy the govt, suck the wealth out taxpayers and run up huge federal deficits.

$700B ain't about the bald-faced lie of "supporting the troops", it's all about supporting/subsidizing the MIC.

[Wild Cobra]

Get rid of the government programs not addressed by the constitution before talking about reducing the military spending. It is addressed in the constitution.

[Marcus Bryant]

A blurb in the Constitution does not justify the American Empire.

[Wild Cobra]

A blurb in the Constitution does not justify the American Empire.
Agreed.

We need to stop allowing the Washington Elitist from the control of the public, with tax dollars.

They are our servants, but they seem to thing they can do what ever they want.

[boutons_deux]

"they seem to thing they can do what ever they want."

Not "seem", they do whatever the corporations and capitalists pay them to do.

[Wild Cobra]

"they seem to thing they can do what ever they want."

Not "seem", they do whatever the corporations and capitalists pay them to do.
My God.

Are you really that dumb?

They have their banker, insurance, and lawyer friends. Most other businesses will suffer if they get their way. They have bough the vote of poor people, and the more poor people they make, the poorer a person is, the more inticing it is to vote democrat!

They are seemingly, intentionally, destroying the wealth of this nation.

Poor people should have the motivation to become rich. Not want to tear down the rick, but whi instigates class envy?