I was going to post this in the Hangout, but realized it would end up over here so I might as well start it off here. We have passed the largest military budget in the history of mankind yet all of the corporate media (CNN, Fox, MSNBC) are virtually ignoring this fact and giving all of the attention to DADT. <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5ozoCxNj7eI?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5ozoCxNj7eI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
As a non-American, it's worrying to me that the US has approved it's largest ever military budget in a time of being very shaky money-wise. In my simple brain, it means that US security concerns are much higher than we think. Is that right? Please educate me.
US military budgets have almost nothing to do with security; they're government subsidies to high-tech firms.
We're fighting two wars. The United States military still has nearly 50,000 boots on the ground in Iraq, and close to 100,000 in Afghanistan. That certainly has something to do with the defense budget. Not everything, by a long shot, but those wars are a huge expenditure.
Feel free to use google it is out there, so much $$$$ is generated in taxes from each gallon of gas, and the defense monies are spent on a lot of US companies.... DD
Great. So how many cents of each tax dollar go to defense now? 42? **** this. All this crap about saving money, and the idiocracy gives us tax cuts and more military spending. It's like a prize fighter who keeps punching himself in the groin even after the referee warns him about low blows.
Expand spending on everything and not take in taxes... Always a good combo when you're rolling in debt. At this rate, I may not ever want to go back to the US until I'm old enough for medicare... and only if it still exist by then.
seems like another way for Obama to "compromise". Basically giving right-wing nuts their military spending in exchange for allowing gays in the military and getting Start pushed through. Obama is happy to let the Republican continue big deficit spending and give the rich money in order to get agenda through. He's a freaking sell-out.
Given that defense is a huge part of the budget and that we're spending far more than we take in from taxes, that number may be even higher. Soon we'll be spending every cent of tax money on defense and borrowing to pay for all the trivial extras like SS, Medicare, Medicaid, education, science, etc.
