Did you know the US govt spent almost HALF a TRILLION on arms in '04?

[fujiyama]

This is insane. How can a nation that spends like this sustain itself?

We are not investing in anything productive - education, healthcare, social security. All is expendible.

This is the culture of life conservatives go on about? I wonder what the culture of DEATH would meant to these people?

Actually I know, it means using blobs of cells for research that may cure diseases.

Here's the numbers:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=645335

"America was by far the greatest spender on arms. In 2004, it spent $455bn, an increase from 2003 of 12 per cent, fuelled largely by the investment in President George Bush's "war on terror". America's foreign aid spending is around 4.1 per cent of its arms bill. Britain, the second largest arms spender, spent $47bn - a tenth of the US total."

[whistle]

1. It will be $740 billion in 2005-06

[punpirate]

2. And, that number doesn't include...

... money appropriated off-budget to fund wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor does it include the costs of intelligence, which are increasingly in support of war, nor some black world research projects and black world paramilitary funding, nor does it include some defense spending hidden in other agency budgets, such as the GSA, USDA, DEA and HSD. Nor does it include interest on debt apportioned to military spending.

Add all that up, and it's a helluva lot more money....

[JDPriestly]

3. Read Collapse by Jared Diamond

We are on our way to a total collapse and, unless we drastically change our ways, this whole earth will soon look a lot like Easter Island.

[firefox]

4. Recent thread said we spend over half

We spend more than the rest of the world put together. The UK is in second place and they spend one tenth what we do.

I think I should start a company called Military Industrial Complex Incorporated just to sell stock.

[KittyWampus]

5. The Pentagon Also LOST TRACK Of A Trillion Dollars

it's worse than you thought

[indepat]

6. We can sustain it only for awhile, but at the expense of SS, Medicare,

health care, education, the infrastructure, the economy, the stock market, the jobs market, world order, such small prices to pay to be kept safe by the neocons as they implement the PNAC agenda.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Tax cuts aside, this is the main reason we have a national debt

The two largest items in the general fund budget are military expenditures and interest on the existing debt, most of which is due to Reagan's military buildup. Nothing else even comes close.

The U.S. spends more on its military than the next seven biggest military spenders combined, and yet the bastards want more, more, more. There is no end to their greed and bloodlust.

The Republicans and the "moderate" Democrats tell us we can't do anything about health care, affordable housing, weaning ourselves from petroleum, equalizing educational opportunities, or any other beneficial stuff because "there isn't any money."

Well, Bozos, there would be money if you didn't write a blank check for the Pentagon every year and vote for senseless war resolutions!!!!

:grr: :grr: :grr: