Billions in waste and not a dime's difference

[unhappycamper]

Billions in waste and not a dime's difference
By Frida Berrigan
Aug 16, 2007


The war in Iraq is a failure. The "global war on terror" cannot be won by military might alone. Access to health care is a right for all. The growing divide between rich and poor is a problem. Torture is un-American.

The Democratic candidates for president - both mainstream and long shots - tend to agree on these and many other issues that position them as smart and compassionate alternatives to the policies and priorities of President George W Bush and hisadministration. But on the one issue that profoundly impacts all of the above, there is not enough difference. Most Democratic candidates for president speak of increasing rather than slashing the military budget.

Since Bush came into office in 2001, the Pentagon's budget has increased by more than one-third. The US$481 billion proposed for 2008 –the $459 billion appropriations plus the nuclear weapons programs of the Department of Energy - is a jump of more than 10% over current spending. To be clear, this is a huge figure even before factoring in the costs of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in under the "war on terror". A recent analysis of the emergency supplemental budgets to pay for the war by the Congressional Research Service finds that (so far) a total of another $607 billion has been spent since September 11, 2001.

The United States is currently spending more on the military than at the height of the Ronald Reagan military build-up (when the US had a nuclear-armed superpower rival) or during the Vietnam or Korean wars. Thanks to the Bush administration, the United States now spends about as much on its military as the rest of the world spends collectively, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Given these figures - and the fact that preponderant military spending has not equaled an unassailable military or the fulfillment of the Bush administration's objectives - there is plenty of fodder for Democratic candidates wishing to take on the Bush administration's love affair with the Pentagon.


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[indepat]

1. Who can argue with the sanctity-of-life 'pukes' priorities, yet some fools blissfully think the US

will always be able to borrow as much money each year for arms as the rest of the world spends each year on arms. These fools also think spending this much money on arms rather than a goodly part of this for infrastructure, the environment, and other domestic needs makes us stronger and keeps us safe. The height of idiocy multiplied a thousand-fold.