Shadowlands

I am all for defense and everything but come on! A $453 Billion defense budget? Jesus Christ that's a lot. Maybe we can slash 100 billion off that and give it too social programs. No I am not a Socialist/communism/democrate I am a full Capitalist but thats just way too much money in my opinion simply for defense. 46 Billion goes to Iraq by the way.


U.S. Military Spending

The United States, being the most formidable military power, it is worth looking at their spending.

The U.S. military budget request for Fiscal Year 2006 is $441.6 billion. (This includes the Defence Department budget and funding for nuclear weapons activity of the Department of Energy Budget. It does not include other items such as money for the Afghan and Iraq wars ($49.1 billion for Fiscal Year 2006), or Homeland Security funding ($41.1 billion for Fiscal Year 2006), for example.)

* For Fiscal Year 2005 it was $420.7 billion
* For Fiscal Year 2004 it was $399.1 billion.
* For Fiscal Year 2003 it was $396.1 billion.
* For Fiscal Year 2002 it was $343.2 billion.
* For Fiscal Year 2001 it was $305 billion. And Congress had increased that budget request to $310 billion.
* This was up from approximately $288.8 billion, in 2000.

* The US military budget was almost as much as the rest of the world’s.
* The US military budget was more than 6 times larger than the Russian budget, the second largest spender.
* The US military budget was more than 30 times as large as the combined spending of the seven “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $13 billion.
* It was more than the combined spending of the next fourteen nations.
* The United States and its close allies accounted for some two thirds to three-quarters of all military spending, depending on who you count as close allies (typically NATO countries, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and South Korea)
* The seven potential “enemies,” Russia, and China together spent $134.2 billion, 34% of the U.S. military budget.

Some of the above statistics come from organizations such as the Center for Defence Information, and the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. This second one, for example has a section on Highlights for fiscal year 2006 budget request. It includes a tabulation of top 55 countries in terms of their spending, which has been produced as a graph here:
United States 399.1 43%
Russia* 65.2 7%
China* 56 6%
United Kingdom 49 5%
Japan 45.1 5%
France 40 4%
Germany 29.7 3%
Saudi Arabia 19.3 2%
India 19.1 2%
Italy 17.5 2%
South Korea 16.4 2%
Australia 11.7 1%
Turkey* 11.7 1%
Israel* 10.8 1%
Canada 10.1 1%
Spain* 9.9 1%
Brazil 9.2 1%
Netherlands 7.6 1%
Taiwan 7.5 1%
Greece* 7.2 1%
Indonesia* 6.4 1%
Sweden 5.9 1%
North Korea* 5.5 1%
Ukraine* 5.5 1%
Singapore 5 1%
Poland 4.4 0%
Norway 4.2 0%
Kuwait 4 0%
Iran 3.5 0%
Belgium 3.3 0%
Pakistan 3.3 0%
Colombia* 3.2 0%
Portugal* 3.2 0%
Vietnam 3.2 0%
Denmark 2.9 0%
Mexico 2.8 0%
Egypt* 2.7 0%
Czech Republic 1.9 0%
Hungary 1.7 0%
Syria 1.6 0%
Argentina 1.6 0%
Rumania** 1.5 0%
Cuba* 1.2 0%
Philippines 0.8 0%
Libya* 0.7 0%
Serbia-Montenegro 0.7 0%
Slovakia** 0.7 0%
Bulgaria** 0.6 0%
Slovenia** 0.5 0%
Sudan* 0.5 0%
Lithuania** 0.3 0%
Luxembourg 0.3 0%
Estonia** 0.2 0%
Latvia** 0.2

Compared to the rest of the world, these numbers are indeed staggering.

Source
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolit...litarySpending
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...ftSwg&refer=us

__________________

Shadowlands

Noone talks to the newbie.

Squawker

Considering all the US does around the world, I am not sure that is such a high number. Was homeland security in the military budget as well? Some savings will come with base closings, but no one wants their base to close.

__________________
http://users.igl.net/jdsquawker/squawkereagle.gifhttp://users.igl.net/jdsquawker/squawkername.gif

Political Word W/RSS Feed

Comrade Brian

I also read in Parade magazine that the US spends more on its military than all other nations combined

and yes that is indeed too much

and yes we should cut a lot of it for social programs

__________________
http://images.google.com/images?q=tb...rs/left.h1.gif

Cougar

Did you know China spends the most on its defense... 3% of its GDP. I agree our numbers are quite staggering but I don't know if I can support your proposed reduction. How about we first try and spend the money 'better' than we can start pulling back and putting the funds into social programs such as education housing.

I too am not a socialist... in fact I would like to see a lot of our programs go away. I am not one to let people go homeless and starve but I also don't believe it is my responsibility to have my tax dollars support other who don't pay into our system. I would like to see things like college costs come down and local school systems better supported. I would like to see us help provide the 'tools for success' and leave it up to the people to 'want' to move forward.

I also think the US should do a better job of spending money abroad. It is a fact that we are the worlds police and it is our job to make sure things run smoothly. Of course we sometimes take advantage of that fact and throw our weight around but hey thats called national policy and everyone does it. I think we should do a better job of PR! We need to put a new face on America and ensure our message is positive to the rest of the world. If we aren't more effective doing this then we are going to have even more problems in the world when countires such as Pakistan grow to more the 1/4 Billion in population of American haters.

vauge

This is one of the things that Reagan did for our country. He put us on a path that allowed us to put funds into the the defense budget.

I would MUCH rather defence get the funds than "social" programs. Govn't needs to keep thier toes out of crap thats none of thier business.

Clinton didn't put monies into this fund significantly - like it should be.
Then this small thing called 9/11 happened.

Gandhi>Bush

What social programs do you feel the government is wasting funds on? Which ones aren't/shouldn't be there business?

9/11 happened because of Clinton's lack of military spending?

__________________
I will let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him. - Booker T. Washington

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed. - Mohandas K Gandhi

http://img287.echo.cx/img287/1156/ghandibush5kp.jpg

Props to ArchEnemy. My signature rocks hard.

vauge

Many of them are available here: http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?...ts_pigbook2005

In part, yes. There were many factors involved, but I think the lack of the Clinton administration to address concerns about OBL & the lack of military spending years before was a significant factor.

ShamMol

Could you explain this further? I would very much like to understand this posistion, because frankly, I am just not seeing it. I mean, I read the 9-11 commission report and that wasn't even a major part there. But, hey, you never know.

__________________

Shadowlands

I would read the 9-11 COMMISion report but who has time to read that?