How much cash do we spend on defense, really? Center for Defense Information budget guru Winslow Wheeler provides this handy chart. Check out the $50 billion increase in the “peacetime” Pentagon coffers — the money that doesn’t get spent on Afghanistan and Iraq.
And where does that money go? Healthcare, paychecks, and new weapons, mostly. Check out this Pentagon chart.
Where are we going to get the money to pay for all this?
I love how this budget is so mammoth that you can actually have a $5.2 billion “Misc” category.
That’s easy, it’s called the national debt.
Where will we get the money from to finance this year’s GWB’s wish list? Practically from all four corners of the world! At the present moment we the taxpayers owe the rest of the world big time in fact so big that it would take our next generation(s) to pay off the debt. I definitely won’t live to see that day but I really worry about our sons who would be saddled with this fiscal monster for their life. We have nobody to be thankful for other than the almighty (GWB) and his neo-cons henchmen. Let’s hope when they meet up with their creator (definitely not mine) they can be made to pay big time for all the wrongs they have done in the name of democracy and freedom which I suspect they don’t even know what they mean.
Well, you could say, that the Department of Defense is never satisfied. You could say that all during the cold war. It is the same budget we had during Raygun. But there is something that is right, until I find out that it is mis-informatation later, and they spent the money on something else. And that is the money allocated for emergencies. You see, it went up–40 billion–in one year. Maybe they are spending some money the right way for a change. Boy, that would be great. You see, the one real feather in the Department of Defense’s cap these days is this. Everytime there is a disaster (earthquake-Packastan) or a tidal wave (Bangladesh) it is “our” military that responds. We actually use our military–to help people. Sometimes we don’t have much–we go anyway. Somwetimes it is just a drop in the bucket, but our military still goes. You see, they are making friends in foriegn countries sometimes, it is that simple. Our military shows up, they help, they make a few friends. But in other parts of the goverment, hell, they do less than that. So in a way, the military of the United States of America is pretty cool. They call it “peacetime operations” and they are very right for doing that. I hope to god they have some money budgeted to keep doing that. We end up being welcome in some places. Now there are other countries, France sends people’Spain sends tents, Germany might help. But it is our military, that loads up truck,planes, fork lifts, ships–damn, we just go. This is definately to our credit. In a way, America’s reputation around the world has been damaged. But when there is a disaster, the military just shows up, and they end up helping our reputation–through the military. Interesting. I guess that is why they call it peace time. s
Dear Wow,
Liberalism is a mental disorder. If you are sooooo concerned with taxes then why on earth would you bash Bush, the only man to lower taxes. All the empty suits and skirts in the pinko, socialist party wish to do is raise taxes. They even go as far as to tell you that they are going to raise them.Steal from the rich and give to the poor. Because Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry are simple people who come from the streets right. They can relate to the poor man better than those rich white homophobic conservative henchmen.