Seven-hundred and thirty-eight billion dollars.
That's the 2012 Department of Defense budget. It's the single largest portion of all US discretionary spending, and it's the largest DoD budget in US history. Comparatively, average annual spending on defense during the Vietnam, Korean, and Cold War was just 408 billion dollars (adjusted for inflation), almost half of what it is now.
Source: Defense.gov
Yeah, you read that right.
Yeah, you read that right.
Why is it that we need to be spending more money on war now than we did just a few years ago, at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars? Why is it that as a country, we'd rather spend money (and unnecessary money at that) on war than on any other of the slew of issues in need of attention in America?It's a fact that we spend more money on our military than the next 20 top military-spending countries combined. Imagine the things we could accomplish if we cut that in half—and we would still be spending more than the next top 10 countries combined!
This money isn’t even being used to effectively protect us from our enemies. Based on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, ranked as the number 3 world US think tank in 2009, the US spends 97 times more on our military than Iran does, 2,748 times more than Afghanistan does, and even China, perhaps our biggest competitor on the world stage, spends six times less on their military than we do.
Maybe it is that a country so much larger than our enemies needs to spend this much more than they do. However, when you compare the percentage of GDP that we spend on military compared to what they do, you still see that we're spending 40% more of our GDP on military than Iran is, and 46% more than China.
This money isn’t even being used to effectively protect us from our enemies. Based on data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, ranked as the number 3 world US think tank in 2009, the US spends 97 times more on our military than Iran does, 2,748 times more than Afghanistan does, and even China, perhaps our biggest competitor on the world stage, spends six times less on their military than we do.
Maybe it is that a country so much larger than our enemies needs to spend this much more than they do. However, when you compare the percentage of GDP that we spend on military compared to what they do, you still see that we're spending 40% more of our GDP on military than Iran is, and 46% more than China.
That means 46% more of a burden on citizens of America than on citizens in China; 46% more of a hindrance on our economy than on that of China's; 46% less resources available to the veterans of these wars, to health and education, and to American infrastructure.
And for what?
So that we can spend more on military than the next 20 countries combined.
And for what?
So that we can spend more on military than the next 20 countries combined.
