Rising Hegemon
How much is $22.5 billion? Our government could buy over 150 shiny new F-35s. Or it could fund the entire public school system for a quarter of the year. Instead, it spent it repairing rusting-away boats, planes, and tanks. Ugh.Why that's almost as much as we spend on air conditioning in countries we currently occupy.
Meanwhile,
Canada's entire military budget in 2009 was $21,800,000,000.Yeah, but they have to spend all that money (still far less than we do btw) on providing all of their citizens with medical care.
8 comments:
The best way to stretch a dollar is fixing rusty old shit. It also keeps them occupied at something useful.
I'm all for spending twice as much on the military fixing rusty old shit.
fixing rusty shit is one thing, but spending $400million on a battleship that has been built without the anti-electrolysis component KNOWN to keep ships of similar construction from DISSOLVING is beyond retarded. Major FAIL on the part of the builder AND the Pentagon Naval Requisition/ process.
I would venture a guess that the engineering folks still left at the Pentagon are some of those 'anti-science' guys...
Actually, I was thinking about our level of military spending just a few days ago and had briefly considered calling Barack about increasing the budget.
I decided not to call since I knew that Barack was very busy with a couple of other important issues -- for instance, his policy planning for keeping Guantanamo open far beyond the next Presidential election.
"For FY 2010, Department of Defense spending amounts to 4.7% of GDP. Because the U.S. GDP has risen over time, the military budget can rise in absolute terms while shrinking as a percentage of the GDP. For example, the Department of Defense budget is slated to be $664 billion in 2010 (including the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan previously funded through supplementary budget legislation[28][29]), higher than at any other point in American history, but still 1.1–1.4% lower as a percentage of GDP than the amount spent on defense during the peak of Cold-War military spending in the late 1980s. "
Well, Orifices and Assholes, I'm sure had you called the White House, they would have transferred you immediately to Obama himself, because he's sooooo desperate for your opinion....
Comparing budgets as a percentage of GDP is a shopworn tactic of the right wing to understate the impact of military spending on the budget. GDP doesn't fucking matter if there aren't nearly enough revenues to cover the spending, and that's the case today, and has been since the Reagan years, nor does it account for the additional drag that three decades of deficit military spending debt has had on the interest which must be paid each year, nor does using the base "defense" appropriation account for the myriad ways in which military spending has been squirreled away in other agencies, from intelligence to privatized surveillance/security programs (which are proliferating literally by the thousands), to the NRO, to the NGIA, to the paramilitary side of "war on drugs" programs, to DHS.
Before you start yammering on and on about GDP and defense spending, dig your head out of yer ass and do your homework.
Oh, right, sorry. You just repeat talking points you heard on Limbaugh's excuse for a radio program. So, I guess that means you've got to crawl out of Limpball's ass first, and that's going to take an effort much greater than a chickenhawk like you can muster.
$22.5 billion is about .6% of Federal expenditures this FY. A rounding error. It is about .15% of GDP.
At this moment Federal spending is in the range of 25% of GDP and revenues are perhaps 14% of GDP. Thus the deficit is 11% of GDP appx.
the military is really worried about funding. finally.
Orifices and Assholes, like his heroes Bush and Cheney, is a HUGE supporter of the military, and is willing to do anything to show that support.
Except actually, you know, put on a uniform and fight.
Or pay more taxes.
But other than that, he'd do ANYTHING to demonstrate his super-patriotism.
And if this should mean making personal sacrifices like writing comments at liberal blogs, well, so be it!
the melting boat is SOOOOOOOOOOO a male big shiny toy problem. can we hillary or some woman run the defence department?
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