tagged w/ defense spending
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Here is something we all can agree on: Federal deficits are a serious problem.
Here is something no one seriously disputes: Today's big deficits were caused mainly by big tax cuts for the wealthy, two unpaid-for wars, a horrible recession caused by Wall Street greed, and an expensive prescription drug program rigged to favor pharmaceutical companies.
Here is something we should not agree to do: Cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.
There is surprisingly broad consensus among Americans (except inside the corporate-dominated D.C. beltway) on what to do about deficits. In poll after poll, strong majorities favor making the wealthiest Americans, who, in many cases, have never had it so good, share the sacrifice and pay a little more in taxes. Increasing taxes on the wealthy is overwhelmingly supported by Democrats and independents. A majority of Republicans and people in the Tea Party movement also support taxing millionaires to help bring down deficits. Even many millionaires say they should be paying higher taxes. At a time when many profitable corporations pay nothing in federal income taxes, there also is widespread support for closing corporate tax loopholes. Taking a hard look at mushrooming defense spending also enjoys widespread support.
For far too long, the Washington agenda has been set by powerful corporate interests and a right wing that do not represent the needs and aspirations of most Americans. For too long, the Democrats have gone along with Republican demands and caved in to these powerful special interests. The American people are frustrated and disgusted. They want Democrats to fight back.
As a Thanksgiving deadline nears for action by the powerful Super Committee on deficit reduction, I hope (but doubt) that Republicans will listen to the American people and support deficit reduction in a fair and responsible way. I hope (but doubt) that Democrats will not once again capitulate just for the sake of an agreement - but that's been the pattern.
In December -- when Democrats controlled the Senate, the House and the White House -- Congress and President Obama not only extended Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthy but also gave new breaks to heirs of the super-rich.
In April -- with a Democrat in the White House and Democrats still in the majority in the Senate -- Republicans threatened to shut down the government and delay the processing of new Social Security benefits for senior citizens unless their demands were met. Democrats went along with $78 billion in cuts from the president's budget request.
In August, in an outrageous display of unprincipled gamesmanship, Republicans put the United States on the brink of bankruptcy. Instead of invoking clear 14th Amendment powers to honor our nation's debts, the president and most Democrats agreed to a $2.5 trillion deficit-reduction package.
That's how we got to where we are today.
Incredibly, throughout all of these negotiations -- in December, in April, in August and again today -- the wealthiest Americans and the country's major corporations have not yet been asked to contribute one penny toward deficit reduction. That is despite huge cuts in life-and-death programs for working families.
The American people have had it. The Occupy Wall Street movement is growing. A virtual popular uprising forced Bank of America to drop an unpopular $5 monthly debit card fee. On Election Day 2011, in Ohio and many other states the American people said NO to right-wing extremism and corporate greed.
The American people are very clear. They do not want Democrats to reach another 'grand bargain' with representatives of the rich and powerful that eviscerates the most successful and popular social programs in the history of this country. They want Democrats to stand up for the 99 percent, not the 1 percent.
If the president and Democrats on the super committee go along with cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the three pillars of the New Deal and the Great Society, and permanently extend the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2 percent, the American people will shake their heads in disbelief. They will arrive at the reasonably valid conclusion that there are no significant differences between the two parties controlled by corporate interests.
More of Senator Sander's speech at the linkHere is something we all can agree on: Federal deficits are a serious problem.... more
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This article via Alternet from Truthout.org's Mike Lofgren sums it up nicely. Since the Current community is at least attempting to be educated voters. It lays out all the questions and gives insightful opionions of why things are the way they are in politics and why they keep staying the same.This article via Alternet from Truthout.org's Mike Lofgren sums it up nicely.... more
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Via Military.Com:Early Brief
US Firm Pleads Guilty to Illegal Defense Exports
July 13, 2011
Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. -- A New Jersey-based defense contractor has admitted sending sensitive military drawings and specifications to China without authorization.
Swiss Technology Inc. of Clifton pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Newark to one count of conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act.
Prosecutors say the company had a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide parts for rifles and machine guns. Rather than manufacture the parts itself, prosecutors say the firm sent drawings and specifications to a firm in China where they could be made more cheaply.
U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman says the company's attempt to cut corners and increase its profits could put American troops at risk.
The company has been ordered to pay more than $1 million in restitution.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Via Military.Com:Early Brief
US Firm Pleads Guilty to Illegal Defense Exports
July... more
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Boeing charged the U.S. Army $1,678.61 for a plastic roller assembly that could have been purchased for $7.71 internally from the Department of Defense’s (DoD) own supplies. In another transaction, a thin metal pin worth 4 cents that the DoD had on hand, unused by the tens of thousands, ended up costing the Army $71.01—a markup of more than 177,000 percent. The transactions for spare helicopter parts are detailed in a previously unavailable Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General’s report obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO).
In all, Boeing overcharged the Army nearly $13 million in dozens of transactions, jacking up the price on small, mundane parts in some cases up to thousands of times more than they were worth, according to the Inspector General’s (IG) report.
The full, unredacted IG report, which POGO is making public for the first time, found that the Army paid Boeing nearly $23 million for parts that should have cost only $10 million. On average, taxpayers were overpaying 131.5 percent above “fair and reasonable” prices Boeing should have charged, according to the May 3 report. What is even more shocking is the price difference between what Boeing charged and the prices that could have been paid had the Army bought many of these items from the DoD’s own in-house supplier, the Defense Logistics Agency. The 177,000 percent example is based on a comparison with Boeing’s unit price with the logistics agency unit price.
“We’re not sure which is more outrageous—Boeing’s audacity in ripping off taxpayers, or the Army blindly accepting Boeing’s jacked-up prices,” said Danielle Brian, POGO’s executive director. “This report raises serious questions about whether this is symptomatic of a much larger problem with oversight of contracts.”
As Capitol Hill debates whether the defense budget should be cut, the DoD IG report shows that there is rampant waste within the DoD’s supply chain, increasing the costs of maintaining and operating weapon systems.
In calculating what the Army should have paid, the IG figured in a 34 percent markup to represent Boeing’s overhead, general and administrative costs, and profit. The report found that the Army contracting officers rarely, if ever, questioned the prices Boeing charged. Additionally, Boeing routinely negotiated significantly lower prices with its suppliers after overcharging the Army.
The Army has resisted obtaining refunds worth several million dollars on some of the overpriced spare parts, in opposition to the DoD IG’s recommendations. For instance, one of the IG’s recommendations was that the Army should request a $6 million refund from Boeing for charging the Army for higher subcontractor prices even though Boeing negotiated lower prices from those subcontractors. In response, the Army said that "there is no justification to request a refund.”
http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/alerts/national-security/ns-sp-20110623-2.htmlBoeing charged the U.S. Army $1,678.61 for a plastic roller assembly that could have... more
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March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. It was sold to the American public as a war to defend our nation and free the Iraqi people. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said our soldiers would be greeted as liberators and that Iraqi oil money would pay for the reconstruction. Vice President Dick Cheney said the military effort would take "weeks rather than months." And Defense Secretary Assistant Ken Adelman predicted that "liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk."
Eight years on, it's time to look back at that "cakewalk."
1. 4,400 U.S. Soldiers Lost for a Lie
More than 4,400 Americans have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq -- more than were killed on 9/11. Over 32,000 U.S. soldiers have been seriously wounded, many kept alive only thanks to the miracle of modern medicine.
But those numbers don't tell the half of it. Stanford University and Naval Postgraduate School researchers who examined the delayed onset of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) found that, by 2023, the rate of PTSD among Iraq war veterans could rise as high as 35 percent. And for the second year in row, more soldiers committed suicide in 2010 than died in combat, a tragic but predictable human reaction to being asked to kill -- and watch your friends be killed -- for a war based on lies.
2. Bankrupting Our Nation
In 2008, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University's Linda Blimes put the cost of the Iraq War at roughly $3 trillion, or about 60 times what the Bush administration first said the invasion would cost. But while a staggering figure, Stiglitz and Blimes now say that their estimate "was, if anything, too low." In an update published last fall in the Washington Post, they note that the war not only drove up the federal debt, but helped drive the skyrocketing oil prices that contributed to the crashing of the global economy.
According to the National Priorities Project, the money the U.S. government spent destroying Iraq could have provided yearly salaries for 12.5 million teachers or paid the annual healthcare costs for 167 million Americans. When elected officials tell us our nation is bankrupt, we should tell them to bring our war dollars home.
3. Hundreds of Thousands of Iraqi Dead
The ones who have suffered the most from the Iraq "cakewalk," of course, are the Iraqis themselves. For an invasion sold as an act of liberation and "profound morality" by propagandists like Jeffrey Goldberg, the U.S. and its allies sure managed to kill a staggering number of those they were liberating. The group Iraq Body Count (IBC) has documented at least 99,900 violent civilian deaths as a direct result of the U.S.-led invasion. But that's an extremely conservative estimate based largely off deaths reported in Western media, an approach bound to undercount the massive death toll from the invasion. Indeed, as WikiLeaks revealed last October, the U.S. government covered up the violent killings of more than 15,000 Iraqi civilians -- killings that weren't reported by any Western paper -- or roughly 20 percent of IBC's official count at the time.
Unfortunately, the number of Iraqi souls liberated from their bodies is likely a lot higher than IBC's count. A 2006 study by researchers at John Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal found that in just over three years there had been 654,965 "excess Iraqi deaths as a consequence of the war," with Iraq's death rate more than doubling due to gunfire -- the leading cause of mortality -- and a lack of medicine and clean water. A January 2008 analysis by British polling firm Opinion Research Business, meanwhile, estimated "that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003."
4. Lights Still Out
Thirteen years of bombings and sanctions crippled the infrastructure and basic services of what was once a wealthy country. Then came the 2003 invasion, which destroyed electrical plants, sewage systems, water treatment facilities, hospitals and more. Eight years later, the living conditions of Iraqis are worse than under Saddam Hussein, with the country plagued by a continued lack of electricity, clean water, medical care and security. Iraqis wonder how it is, after the most powerful country in the world occupied it and ostensibly spent billions on reconstruction, they are still living in the dark.
5. Millions Flee Their Homes
According to the United Nations Refugee Agency, since 2003 "more than 4.7 million Iraqis have fled their homes, many in dire need of humanitarian care" -- hardly an endorsement of life in the "liberated" nation. Many Iraqis fled their homes to seek asylum in Iran, Jordan and Syria, while roughly 1.5 million fled to other parts of Iraq, the majority of which "have found no solutions to their plight," according to the UN. In the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, millions will never be able to return.
6. Women and Girls Forced into Prostitution
Women in Iraq have been particularly hit by the invasion and occupation. The Iraqi government estimates there are up to 3 million widows in Iraq today. Meanwhile, violence against women -- including honor killings, rape and kidnapping -- has soared , forcing many women to remain at home and limiting employment and educational opportunities, according to a new Freedom House report. "A deep feeling of injustice and powerlessness sometimes leads women to believe that the only escape is suicide," the report notes.
Many Iraqi women who fled to neighboring countries have found themselves unable to feed their children. Just to make ends meet, tens of thousands of them -- including girls 13 and under -- have been forced into lives of prostitution, particularly in Syria.
"From what I've seen, 70 percent to 80 percent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis," one refugee told the New York Times. "If they go back to Iraq they'll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available."
7. Poisoning Iraqi Society
The U.S. military dropped thousands of bombs across Iraq laced with depleted uranium, the radioactive waste produced from manufacturing nuclear fuel. Valued by the military for its density and ability to ignite upon impact, depleted uranium bombs continue to kill years after they've been dropped. In Fallujah, which was bombarded more than anywhere else in Iraq, British researchers uncovered a massive increase in infant mortality and rates of cancer, with the latter exceeding "those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki," according to the Independent.
And it's not just Fallujah facing a cancer epidemic. Al Jazeera reports that in the central Iraq province of Babil, reported cancer cases rose from 500 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2008. And in Basrah, the last 15 years have seen the childhood leukemia rate more than double, according to a study published last year in the American Journal of Public Health.
ARTICLE CONTINUES AT LINK:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/medea-benjamin/ten-reasons-the-iraq-war-_b_836910.html
Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org) and Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org). Charles Davis has covered Congress for NPR and Pacifica stations, and freelanced for the international news wire Inter Press Service.March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no... more
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President Barack Obama signaled his openness to larger deficit-reduction talks with Congress on Tuesday but drew a sharp line at the immediate spending cuts proposed by the House, even suggesting that Republicans were jeopardizing the Pentagon’s ability to “meet vital military requirements.”
The thinly veiled veto threat was delivered in a formal statement of administration policy just hours after debate opened in the House on the Republican plan.
And the suggestion that Republicans risked hurting the nation’s defense amounts to an especially hardball political response designed to play on divisions in the GOP over the level of Pentagon cuts.
“The bill proposes cuts that would sharply undermine core government functions and investments key to economic growth and job creation and would reduce funding for the Department of Defense to a level that would leave the department without the resources and flexibility needed to meet vital military requirements,” the statement read. “If the president is presented with a bill that undermines critical priorities or national security through funding levels or restrictions, contains earmarks or curtails the drivers of long-term economic growth and job creation while continuing to burden future generations with deficits, the president will veto the bill.”...
Continued at:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/49603.html#ixzz1E8yi7PJHPresident Barack Obama signaled his openness to larger deficit-reduction talks with... more
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Dagum
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Fun fact: The US has 11 Aircraft Carriers. No other country in the world has more than two. Russia has one, and China has none. Well, actually China bought one from Russia, but it doesn’t really work, and may end up as a floating casino.Fun fact: The US has 11 Aircraft Carriers. No other country in the world has more than... more
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So after my last video on how to fix the USA’s economy, I saw a lot of ignorant comments in the comments section about WELFARE.
They weren’t NEW ignorant comments, they were the SAME ignorant comments that you hear over and over. Apparently nobody out there is challenging people on their declarations, and allowing the virus of ignorance to spread.
So I wanted to make a list of facts and talking points for progressives when confronted with these conservative... well, let’s call them what they are-- they’re LIES, and stop the spread of ignorance in it’s tracks.
So let’s go down the list, and tackle them one by one, shall we?
1) Welfare spending is the reason our government is in debt.
FALSE.
If you had the choice between giving somebody a dollar and getting back either $1.50 or $0.80, which would you choose? Hold that thought.
According to USGovernmentspending.com The Federal Government is committed by law to spending 557 billion on welfare in the year 2010. Which seems like “Oh my! That’s a lot of money!” Which, for one person, yeah it is. But for our federal government, not so much.
Especially when you compare that to the $895 billion we’re committed to spend, by law on Defense spending. Which doesn’t account for the $711 billion in our discretionary spending on stuff like the War in Iraq and Afghanistan, and useless cold war-era weapons that we don’t even use, and never will.
Next you have to take into account what we get for those dollars spent.
Most economists agree on the following figures, including conservative ones:
Welfare spending has a fiscal multiplier of about 1.5-- while military spending has a fiscal multiplier of 0.8.
To which you might say, “wow, you just said some numbers, but what the hell does that mean? It means that for every dollar our gov’t spends on welfare, we get one dollar and fifty cents back in the form of GDP. With military spending, for every dollar we spend, we get back $0.80.
That seems really stupid. And that’s because it is. Which is why politicians frame their arguments about or disgustingly wasteful military spending as being “patriotic” or “supporting the troops.”
How much support actually goes to our troops? You, know, like after they come back from getting shot at and having their legs blown off?
According to the White House’s own figures, we’re slated to spend $125 billion on veterans affairs. And we all know about staffing shortages and underfunding that goes on in our VA system. So clearly this isn’t about supporting our troops.
For those who don’t care about human lives, and only the hard economics, I want to ask you again: If you had the choice between giving somebody a dollar and getting back either $1.50 or $0.80, which would you choose?
Now for the humanitarians out there, if you had to choose between giving somebody a dollar to feed their family, knowing you’d get back $1.50, or give somebody $1 knowing that your next door neighbor would have his legs blown off and you’ll only get back $0.80, which would you choose?So after my last video on how to fix the USA’s economy, I saw a lot of ignorant... more
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asherp
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Later today, Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Ron Paul and 55 congressional co-signers are sending a letter to the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform advocating defense cuts. The letter is good not just on cuts, but on theory: It's as much about where we can save money as why we don't need to spend the money. Here's the core of it, with my emphases:
The Department of Defense currently takes up almost 56% of all discretionary federal spending, and accounts for nearly 65% of the increase in annual discretionary spending levels since 2001. Much of this increase, of course, is attributable to direct war costs, but nearly 37% of discretionary spending growth falls under the “base” or “peacetime” military budget. Applying the adage that it is necessary to “go where the money is” requires that rigorous scrutiny be applied to military spending. We believe that such an analysis will show that substantial spending cuts can be made without threatening our national security, without cutting essential funds for fighting terrorism, and without shirking our obligations as a nation to our brave troops currently in the field, our veterans, and our military retirees.
Much of these potential savings can be realized if we are willing to make an honest examination of the cost, benefit, and rationale of the extensive U.S. military commitment overseas, which in large part remains a legacy of policy decisions made in the immediate aftermath of World War II and during the Cold War. Years after the Soviet threat has disappeared, we continue to provide European and Asian nations with military protection through our nuclear umbrella and the troops stationed in our overseas military bases. Given the relative wealth of these countries, we should examine the extent of this burden that we continue to shoulder on our own dime.
We also think that significant savings can be found if we subject to similar scrutiny strategic choices that have led to the retention and continued development of Cold War-era weapons systems and initiatives such as missile defense. While the Soviet Union and its allies nearly matched the West’s level of military expenditure during the Cold War, no other nation today remotely approaches the 44% share of worldwide military spending assumed by the United States. China, for instance, spends barely one-fifth as much on military power as the United States. Instead of protecting us against a clear and determined foe and enemy, Defense Department planning and strategic objectives now focus on stemming the emergence of new threats by maintaining a vast range of global commitments on all continents and oceans. We believe that such commitments need to be scaled back.
Additionally, we believe that significant savings can be realized through reforming the process by which the Pentagon engages in weapons research, development and procurement, manages its resources, and provides support services. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has speculated that waste and mismanagement accounted for at least 5% of the Pentagon budget annually, and despite a long history of calls for reform from outside the Pentagon, and actual reform initiatives within it, it is clear that much more remains to be done.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/10/barney_frank_ron_paul_and_55_o.htmlLater today, Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Ron Paul and 55 congressional co-signers are... more
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by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user clementine gallot, via Creative Commons LicenseThe job market in its worst state since the Great Depression and is putting tremendous strain on millions of Americans. Without action from Washington, D.C., the unemployment rate will remain elevated for years to come, and almost certainly above 9 percent through the end of 2010. Public esteem for economic policymakers isn’t doing so hot either. There are several simple steps that President Barack Obama and Congress could take to create jobs, but of late, neither have shown much interest in doing so.
Jobs matter
As Tim Fernholz emphasizes for The American Prospect, one of the best opportunities to repair the job market is a piece of legislation authored by Rep. George Miller (D-CA). The bill’s strategy is straightforward: Local governments pinched by the recession can apply for federal funds to ensure that teachers, cops, and other public servants are not laid off in the name of balanced budgets. Local governments that have already let employees go could apply for funding to re-hire them.
The result would be a clear win for the economy. Miller estimates that his bill could create 750,000 jobs, while the Economic Policy Institute expects the bill could create as many as 945,000. It’s also a smart political move—Obama’s political adversaries would no doubt find some way to criticize the move (they invented death panels for health care, after all), but as Fernholz notes, voters care much more about getting back to work than they do about ideological warfare or abstract bloviations about the federal budget deficit.
The deficit vs. jobs
And the federal budget deficit is no excuse for inaction on jobs. In the middle of a recession, providing funding for jobs can ultimately be deficit-reducing. More people working means more people buying goods and services. That means higher tax receipts for the government on a variety of fronts.
The deficit only matters if it is so severe that investors are skittish about lending money to the government. We would see this nervousness in the interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds—the rate would be very high, as investors demanded a high return for the risk they were taking on. But in fact, interest rates are very low—the interest rate on 30-year bonds is currently just over 4 percent, while it frequently eclipsed 9 percent during the presidency of George H. W. Bush.
War doesn’t improve the economy
But if lawmakers wanted to take action on the deficit, there is no reason why they should do so at the expense of jobs. Congress just approved an additional $60 billion in funding for the war in Afghanistan, while refusing to provide a $28 billion for teachers in the name of deficit reduction. Congress has officially spent $1 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as Robert Greenwald notes for AlterNet, wars which have done little to improve either U.S. economic or foreign policy goals:
These wars aren’t making us safer. They aren’t worth the cost, and we don’t need them. What people do need are jobs and help when they don’t have enough work or any work at all. But instead of leading on the jobs issue, they’re delaying and dissembling about the cost– while spending trillions on war.
Indeed, the failure of Congress to take action on jobs before its Memorial Day recess means that over one million Americans will stop receiving unemployment benefits within a month’s time.
Tax time
As Art Levine emphasizes for Working In These Times, spending is only half of the budget equation. The other half is revenues, which means taxes. There are all kinds of ways that the government could responsibly raise taxes and use that money to create jobs. One political no-brainer would be requiring hedge fund mangers and private equity kingpins to pay taxes at the same rates as those of other billionaires.
Thanks to a George W. Bush-era tax cut, these Wall Street titans are taxed at rates as low as 15 percent, dramatically lower than the 35 percent tax rate for rich people who make their millions in the form of salary rather than interest on investments. Levine also details a host of jobs initiatives that were ultimately axed in favor of concerns about the deficit.
Tax the speculators
As Sarah Anderson notes for Yes! Magazine, taxing financial speculation itself could help give our economy a double jolt. By taxing risky Wall Street gambling, the government could bring in billions to spend on jobs. If that tax discouraged Wall Street traders from engaging in risky gambling, the lower levels of speculation would help insulate our economy from the kinds of shocks it received in the fall of 2008.
Come November, the top concern at the polling place will correspond closely to the top concerns of consumer pocketbooks. Tough economic times will mean losses for incumbents in both political parties, but the party that does the most to create jobs will do the most to curb its losses. It will also be pursuing responsible public policy, and advancing the well-being of its constituents.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Audit for a complete list of articles on economic issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, health care and immigration issues, check out The Mulch, The Pulse and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Zach Carter, Media Consortium blogger
Image courtesy of Flickr user clementine... more
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If you're like me, now that we're in the week that federal income taxes are due, you are finally starting to collect your records and prepare for the ordeal. Either way, whether you are a procrastinator like me, or have already finished and know how much you have paid to the government, it is a good time to stop and consider how much of your money goes to pay for our bloated and largely useless and pointless military.
The budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which has to be voted by Congress by this Oct. 1, looks to be about $3 trillion, not counting the funds collected for Social Security (since the Vietnam War, the government has included the Social Security Trust Fund in the budget as a way to make the cost of America's imperial military adventures seem smaller in comparison to the total cost of government). Meanwhile, the military share of the budget works out to about $1.6 trillion.
That figure includes the Pentagon budget request of $708 billion, plus an estimated $200 billion in supplemental funding, called "overseas contingency funding" in euphemistic White House-speak), to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some $40 billion or more in "black box" intelligence agency funding, $94 billion in non-DOD military spending, $100 billion in veterans benefits and health care spending, and $400 billion in interest on debt raised to pay for prior wars and the standing military.
The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing.
Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53.3% of total US federal spending.
It's also a budget that is rising at a faster pace than any other part of the budget (with the possible exception of bailing out crooked Wall Street financial firms and their managers). For the past decade, and continuing under the present administration, military budgets have been rising at a 9% annual clip, making health care inflation look tiny by comparison.
US military spending isn't just half of the US budget. It is also half of the entire global spending on war and weaponry. In 2009, according to the venerable War Resisters League, US military spending accounted for 47% of all money spent globally on war, weapons and military preparedness. What makes that staggering figure particularly ridiculous is that America's allies--countries like France, Britain, Germany, Italy, and Japan--account for another 21% of the world's military spending. Fully 12 of the top-spenders among big military-spending nations are either allies of the US, or are friendly countries like Brazil and India. That is to say, America and its friends and allies account for more than two-thirds of all military spending worldwide.If you're like me, now that we're in the week that federal income taxes are... more
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Marines and Afghan units converged Sunday on a dangerous western quarter of the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, with NATO forces facing "determined resistance" as their assault on the southern town entered its second week.
The Marjah operation is a major test of a new NATO strategy that stresses protecting civilians over routing insurgents as quickly as possible. It's also the first major ground operation since President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan.
In a setback to that strategy, the Dutch prime minister said Sunday that his country's 1,600 troops would probably leave Afghanistan this year. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende spoke a day after his government collapsed when a coalition partner insisted the Dutch troops leave in August as planned.
Fighter jets, drones and attack helicopters flew over Marjah, as Marine and Afghan companies moved on a 2-square-mile (5.2-sq. kilometer) area of the town where more than 40 insurgents have apparently holed up.
"They are squeezed," said Lt. Col. Brian Christmas, commander of 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. "It looks like they want to stay and fight but they can always drop their weapons and slip away. That's the nature of this war."
Insurgents are putting up a "determined resistance" in various parts of Marjah, though the overall offensive is "on track," NATO said Sunday, eight days after thousands of Afghan and international forces launched their largest joint operation since the Taliban regime's ouster in 2001.
Late last week, Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, head of NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, said he believed it would take at least 30 days to complete securing the Nad Ali district and Marjah in Helmand province, a hub for a lucrative opium trade that profits militants.
cont.Marines and Afghan units converged Sunday on a dangerous western quarter of the... more
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The House passed an appropriations bill 400-30, which took out $44 billion from the original bill including $2 billion for more F-22s. However, lots of weapons systems the military and the President never asked for are still being bought on the national credit card to buy off campaign contributors and to "create jobs" in certain Congressional districts.
$128 billion is to be spent on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Military personnel will only be receiving a 3.4% raise, so now a new soldier will rake in a staggering $1447 per month, or $17,364 per year. When working 16 hours a day, 7 days a week in Iraq, that comes to about $3.24 per hour after the raise. US military are exempt from US minimum wage laws.
Congress is also buying themselves 9 new F-18 Superhornets to be built in St. Louis, despite the fact that these are supposed to be phased out and replaced by F-35s. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) is spending $369 million of your money in his district for F-22 engines. And then there's $674 million for C-17s made in Long Beach, CA that the military doesn't want. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) is spending your money in his district for VH-71 presidential helicopters the President says are a waste of money.
Yet Congress somehow mustered the balls to stiff Obama out of the $100 million to close Guantanamo Bay's prison and move the prisoners.The House passed an appropriations bill 400-30, which took out $44 billion from the... more
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Washington - Despite its conviction that climate change represents a serious threat to national and global security, the administration of President Barack Obama has proposed spending one dollar on addressing the challenge for every nine dollars it intends to spend on the U.S. military, according to a new report by the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).Washington - Despite its conviction that climate change represents a serious threat to... more
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Of course, it doesn't come close to the 515 BILLION dollars in defense spending this government budgeted for 2009- in a recession no less. However, are we to believe that China is increasing military spending just to increase soldier pay? Especially when we look at where they are positioning themselves in the world? And I find it so hypocritical for them to say they are not involved in any conflicts around the world when they are supplying weapons to those in Darfur killing people, and their undeclared marital law in Tibet where they are torturing and killing innocent people.Of course, it doesn't come close to the 515 BILLION dollars in defense spending... more
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Is the US Military falling apart? The Center for Defense Information has a new book, "America's Defense Meltdown”, available as free download. It's prepared by 13 non-partisan Pentagon insiders, retired military officers and defense analysts and lays out for the new president and Congress the depth of what's wrong with our national defense and proposes solutions to these problems.Is the US Military falling apart? The Center for Defense Information has a new book,... more
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Be afraid, be very afraid. Now the recession is hurting the Pentatgon.
That's the word in response to the news that the Defense Department has cancelled a $1.7 billion spy satellite program. The next question we'll hear in Congress come appropriation time: "Are you willing to let the US credit crisis limit our “defense”
capability?"
Let's not go down that road without a little intelligence. For one thing, those who helped kill the spy satellite program point out that the US already has this capability the skyborn cameras would offer, albeit through private contractors. The fact is, there's no recession in the US weapons market. Just the opposite.
Between 2001 and 2008, Lockheed Martin saw its contracts from the Department of Defense jump nearly 130%, from $14 billion to $32 billion.
The Defense Department's base budget, which does not include funds for nuclear weapons or the $12-billion-a-month "global war on terror," has grown by nearly 70% — from $316 billion in 2001 to a request for more than $515 billion for 2009's fiscal year (which begins in October). And even though that's close to what the rest of the world combined spends on its military, neither Barack Obama nor John McCain has adopted any plan to reduce US military spending. U.S. weapons sales to countries like Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are on track to be 45% higher in 2008 than in 2007.
You can cry all you like for the prospects of peace in a world prickling with deadly U.S. made ways to kill people. But don't shed a tear for the war industry. Downturn or no downturn, that's one part of this economy not hit so far by anything resembling a recession. Is peace in trouble? Yes. The Pentagon? Far from it.
Be afraid, be very afraid. Now the recession is hurting the Pentatgon.
That's... more
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