The Insane Military Budget

Fifty-one years ago,  Republican Dwight Eisenhower, the thirty-fourth President of the United States, warned against the increasing militarization of the United States in his famous speech on the "military-industrial complex."  John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, once wrote in a letter to a Navy friend that "War will exist until the distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today."

Neither Eisenhower's warning nor Kennedy's vision have gained much of a foothold in the last half-century - this despite the end of the Cold War, despite the disastrous wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the misguided military incursions and interference in the internal affairs of Latin American countries, despite the trillions of dollars of expenditures, despite the tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of foreign lives lost. 

Militarism has powerful and influential supporters in government.  Large swaths of the populace confuse it with patriotism.  The so-called defense industry has long provided a home for retiring politicians who can effectively act as lobbyists for the industry.  Republicans will cut just about every program imaginable except the bloated military budget.  Democrats, ever fearful of seeming not militaristic enough, have been ineffective at best and complicit at worst.  Neo-con dreams of an American Empire based on military intervention still gets a welcome hearing in many corners and the drumbeat for war with Iran is starting to be played by many of the same actors who misled us into Iraq. 

It's time for this to stop.  The money that is currently spent on paying for wars - past. present, and future - is totally out of control and totally unrelated to any real dangers that we now face.  This graphic from The Economist says it all:



The Economist notes that United States military spending in 2010 was more than the next seventeen nations combined. And this is using an official figure of $700 bn, which is not the whole story by a long shot. 

As Chris Hellman explained at TomDispatch.com, the Fiscal Year 2012 Pentagon budget starting at an official figure of $703 bn rises rapidly when we see the other military-related spending squirreled away in departments other than Defense or related to past wars and military expenditures.

Official Pentagon budget: 703 bn$
Counter-terrorism and homeland security: + 62 bn$
National Intelligence Program funding: + 53 bn$
Veteran programs:hospital,medical, disability, education: + 129 bn$
Other direct security spending (for example, military aid): + 18 bn$
Military and DOD pensions: +  69 bn$
Interest on debt for past Pentagon spending: +185 bn$

Total military-related spending = 1219 bn$ or 1.219 trillion dollars

The 1.2 trillion dollars is just under 1/3 of the total budget proposal for FY 2012 (~$3.75 trillion).  In other words, one of every three dollars in the 2012 budget is spent on the military.  Coincidentally (or maybe not), this 1.2 trillion dollars approximates the FY 2012 projected budget deficit ($1.1 - $1.3 trillion). 

Any rational and humane discussion aimed at reducing the deficit must start here.  Before we cut heating fuel subsidies, shred the food stamp program, slash Medicaid, underfund health care reform, increase student loan interest rates, privatize Social Security and end Medicare as we know it, we must address this out-of-control military spending.