The 2003 Defense budget rose by $37.5 billion from 2002 to a mere $335,100,000,000. 2006 was ~$500,000,000,000 and 2009 is expected to blow that out of the water. Sadly enough, this makes up over 50% of our discretionary budget. We steadily increase this amount every year. We spend as much as The Netherlands, Indonesia, Canada, Australia, Italy, Brazil, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Russia, and China ALL combined.
The U.S. accounts for 47% of the world’s total military spending while only accounting for 20% of the world’s GDP. (provided by Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation)
With that being said, what do you think?
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I think we spend way too much. That being said…what we do spend is poorly allocated. I have spoken with people that have served and their equipment is in poor shape at best. So, where does all the money go?
Halliburton duh…
http://www.irregulartimes.com/c-17spendingrollcall.html
Too lazy to find a good article but this is a good example of where the money goes. Congress doling out dough to their own districts in order to keep people in jobs. Shameful.
I know we spend waaay too much on this. Can somebody tell me the objective of this war? Are we really that shook of the Taliban that we are willing to chase them around for 8-10 years?
Way to much. Do guns, bullets, missiles, a few tanks and raptors really cost 500 Billion dollars? If I ever spoke to some high ranking official in military, I would ask them why are we fighting? First, it was to find Bin Laden, and that is still taking place.
If you commit a crime and run across country, they would find you but a bearded man in a cave who sends you video tapes once a month can’t be found in 6 years??????? I mean for 500 billion I’ll go get him.
OR you would get shot
Unfortunately, the “military industrial complex” = jobs. Lots and lots of jobs. Yes, I do feel that we do spend too much on “defense” spending right now. However, this is often do to bureaucratic misappropriation of funds (*insert government run health care comment here*). If can spend more efficiently, we would end up reducing our final cost.
We were not playing to win since day one of either current “war”. It’s political ineptitude at its worst and it disgusts me that people are dieing because of it. Play to win and win big. Or go home. This middle ground crap has to stop.
The cost of production is minimum compared to the maintenance, R&D, support, logistics and transportation needed for the items you just listed. Remember, the old adage is that for every front line combat trooper there is, there are 7 more people needed to support him.
As for not being able to find Bin Laden….the world is a big place.
What about the “Shock and Awe” fireworks show. You have to admit it was pretty big.
Really! How many years does it take to find someone? Do we really need 30,000 more people to go find one bearded 52 year old man?