Here's the problem with the Pie

[Ichingcarpenter]

Current military” includes Dept. of Defense ($653 billion), the military portion from other departments ($150 billion), and an additional $162 billion to supplement the Budget’s misleading and vast underestimate of only $38 billion for the “war on terror.” “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt.*

These figures are from an analysis of detailed tables in the “Analytical Perspectives” book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2009. The figures are federal funds, which do not include trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 15, 2008, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller.

*Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated.



http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm

[MADem]

1. Where's George? He said we have to make that pie higher! NT

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. The 8% increase pisses me off plus the $52 billion for nukes

The United States spends more than $52 billion a year maintaining, upgrading and operating its nuclear weapons arsenal each year, a little-heralded study revealed Monday.

Outside of the hefty price tag, equally significant is the way the money is spent. The US devoted just 1.3 percent -- or $700 million -- to preparing for the consequences of a nuclear attack.

The amount of money spent on America's nuclear programs dwarfs the amount spent on diplomacy and foreign assistance (combined), effectively leaving US diplomatic efforts abroad in the long shadow of America's ballistic missiles.

"Nuclear security consumes $13 billion more than international diplomacy and foreign assistance; nearly double what the United States allots for general science, space, and technology; and 14 times what the Department of Energy (DOE) budgets for all energy-related research and development," the Carnegie Institute for Peace noted in a study posted to the Federation for American Scientists' Secrecy News blog Monday.

Nuclear weapons or related programs account for 67 percent of the Department of Energy's Budget. They also account for 8.5 percent of the FBI budget, 7.1 percent of the Pentagon budget and 1.7 percent of the budget for the Department of Homeland Security.


http://www.rawstory.com/news/2008/Revealed_US_spends_more_than_52_0112.html

[MADem]

3. General Dynamics....they're friends of the administration.

Unless they go into the plowshares business, I'm thinking not too much is going to change any time soon.

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. You notice McDonald Douglas advertises for their new Military jet on CNN

That money comes from taxpayers. McDonald Douglas is totally subsided by
the government. Why do they need to pay CNN advertising money?

[MADem]

8. Those ads target legislators, not us. They're media lobbying, in essence. NT

[Ichingcarpenter]

9. Legislators don't need to watch TV to be lobbied

Its a waste of taxpayers money.

[MADem]

22. But they DO, anyway. Those ads are all on the Sunday talk shows, you notice.

These politicians are so hubris-laden they'll tune in to see how they -- or their competition -- do when responding to reporter's questions. It's like high school, writ large. "Ewww, did you see Joey on Meet The Press? Gregory really smoked HIS ass--bwahahahaha!!! But Johnny did a good job slapping that guy down!" If there's a conflict, they TIVO it (back in the old days, they'd make staffers TAPE it for them).

Those ads are there to have "just one more opportunity" to be in front of the lawmaker.

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. When I grew up the military nor the contractors advertised like

they do these days with supporting NASCAR, TV advertisements and other
nefarious ways.

[MADem]

7. It's pretty egregious. Between Boeing, General Dynamics, and mega-corporations

like Archer Daniels Midland sponsoring Sunday news shows, you've gotta figure they're doing a lotta lobbying.

Pick up any defense publication, and the ads are just Over The Top.

[mntleo2]

11. Yeah how many viewers are gonna buy one of those jets???

...so who the hell IS the target in those ads?

Cat in Seattle

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. "Defense spending" is not only America's Sacred Cow but it's Sacred Porker.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken

[FloridaJudy]

10. I think it's time to re-post the "oreo video'

http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/

[chill_wind]

12. "Where do your tax dollars go?"

"Where do your tax dollars go?"


Taxpayers can take stock of how the federal government spent their 2007 income tax dollars: over 40 percent went towards military spending, while education received just over 4 percent. This publication shows how the median income family's 2007 income tax dollars were spent for every state and 200 cities, towns and counties.

(pdf)
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/auxiliary/taxday2008/999.pdf

Interactive menus(state, city, counties):

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2008





http://www.nationalpriorities.org/node/6916

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. Pretty Fucked up

and inexcusable, but Hey....... the military was at the Super Bowl Too.

General Petraous and the fly over.

[chill_wind]

16. And Afghanistan is the new Iraq

30,000 more troops heading there this spring...

ProPublica
National Security
Commission on Wartime Contractors Discovers…Afghanistan
by T. Christian Miller, ProPublica - February 2, 2009 6:14 pm EST


The congressionally mandated Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan <1> met for the first time in Washington D.C. today, the start of a two-year long probe into corruption, abuse and fraud in the ongoing conflicts that may one day top a trillion dollars in cost.

http://www.propublica.org/article/commission-on-wartime-contractors-discoversafghanistan-0202


WAR IS a Racket.



"ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. We strive to foster change through exposing exploitation of the weak by the strong and the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them."

[Ichingcarpenter]

17. The Military Industrial Complex is a powerful hungry Beast

That sucks out the marrow of our children's bones for profit.
While telling the parents they need to be scared of the other kid
as they break the bones over the table of profit and suck them dry.

[AwakeAtLast]

13. And yet a Private only grosses $1,399.50/month - per AKO

and can work up to 80 hours (or more) per week. The soldier's piece is mighty slim. x(

Most of that pie goes to contractors - KBR anyone? :grr:

[defendandprotect]

14. Military is more than half the budget -- it has to go! Meanwhile . . .

remember all the fuss about Welfare . . . it was less than one half of one percent of the budget!

[leftstreet]

18. K&R

[Warren DeMontague]

19. Add to that the idiotic "drug war", and just imagine what we could save if we got our priorities

straight.

[cynatnite]

20. I got yelled at when I told a SGT that the military budget should be cut in half...

Not a popular thing to say when one is active duty. :smoke:

[treestar]

21. Helps explain the existence of Rushbots and the 46%

They could be the ones whose jobs depend on defense spending. Probably mostly American jobs too.

We have a hard time getting off this military footing. It explains why we squandered the end of the Cold War as a peace dividend and just started looking for wars to fight elsewhere.