Obama War Budget Breaks All Records. But When Will Black America Break with Him?

[Ghost Dog]

The military budget firmly cements Barack Obama's place as the biggest pro-war president in two generations. Today, the United States, although it is the world's only superpower, spends almost as much as all of the rest of the world's militaries, combined. The U.S. defense authorization for 2011 is $725 billion. China, with the second most expensive military machine on the planet, spends less than $80 billion a year.

If Barack Obama lasts for eight years in office, he is on track to spend $5 trillion dollars on the Pentagon, significantly more than George Bush, who in turn spent a lot more than Ronald Reagan. But, as they say on the TV commercials, that's not all. The defense budget doesn't include expenditures for Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, nuclear weapons work at the Department of Energy, military aid to other countries through the Department of State, NASA space programs that are really military projects, the military retirement fund run out of the Department of Treasury, and the interest payments on past military expenditures that were financed by debt. Inclusion of those hidden costs of war would bring military-related spending to well over $1 trillion dollars a year and rising all the time.

...

In real dollars, the U.S. is spending far more on the military than at any time during the Cold War, when there was another superpower in competition, and more than President Lyndon Johnson spent at the height of the Vietnam War.

/... http://conversations.blackvoices.com/general/7f848ff5d8f34158aa83a0491334a403/when-will-black-ame%20.../3d54d9f6a9fd4f319482aacb021cd24f

[Hardrada]

1. We can't emphasize this enough. The MIC has slipped the leash

and is dragging us along with it.

[KoKo]

8. +1

[BzaDem]

2. It must really piss some people off that Obama's core constituencies approve of him by record

margins. Truth hurts sometimes I guess.

[frylock]

10. no, but it does piss people off that obama's war budget breaks all records..

keep fuckin that chicken.

[Lasher]

3. And yet, to read all the buzz in the news lately you'd think we're cutting defense spending.

But that is the purpose of the buzz, to get you to think that. It's all a lie.

[meow mix]

4. we must cut entitlements to support this. its the only thing a supportive democrat can do

i am fucking sick to death of his apologists.

[treestar]

5. The amount of a budget does no such thing

That's absurd. Shit costs more over time. there is more technology and that is more expensive.

Just stupid. A stupid, stupid way to bash the President.

[FlyByNight]

6. Excluding the Iraq-Afghan...

...occupations, the Cold War was won (for lack of a better phrase and historical details notwithstanding) with Pentagon spending at roughly half of what it is now. I'm not sure if the analogy is wholly accurate but it seems as if the Pentagon has become a Praetorian Guard.

This madness must end.

[Laelth]

7. k&r for the truth, however depressing. n/t

-Laelth

[emilyg]

9. k/r for the Nobel Peace Prize.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

11. Most blacks have sense to realize the hand that was dealt to this president!

We will not abandon him!

[ProfessionalLeftist]

12. SO - if you want to CUT the deficit/debt - WHERE do you start?

How about RIGHT THERE - defense.

Hmmm???? Cut that sucker in HALF.