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I hear the term "strong military" thrown around quite often. Many Americans, both left and right, are usually inclined towards having a "strong military" but I think everyone simply assumes its meaning and never analyzes the specifics of such a term.
So, what is a strong military? What are its functions (primary, secondary, etc.)? How much money should we spend on it?
Some info:
The defense budget for FY of 2008 was $481.4 billion [1], which is about 3.4% of GDP ($14.62 trillion [2]), as opposed to welfare spending (Medicare, Medicaide, SS, Unemployment, totaling $1.5 trillion [3]) which accounted for roughly 10.7% of GDP.
This means, as a percentage of GDP, Americans spend a little over three times as much on welfare as we do discretionary defense spending. Just food for thought...
[1] - http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/budget/defense.pdf
[2] - Report for Selected Countries and Subjects
[3] - 2008 United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So, what is a strong military? What are its functions (primary, secondary, etc.)? How much money should we spend on it?
Some info:
The defense budget for FY of 2008 was $481.4 billion [1], which is about 3.4% of GDP ($14.62 trillion [2]), as opposed to welfare spending (Medicare, Medicaide, SS, Unemployment, totaling $1.5 trillion [3]) which accounted for roughly 10.7% of GDP.
This means, as a percentage of GDP, Americans spend a little over three times as much on welfare as we do discretionary defense spending. Just food for thought...
[1] - http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/budget/defense.pdf
[2] - Report for Selected Countries and Subjects
[3] - 2008 United States federal budget - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia