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USS New Mexico, commissioned March 27, 2010. Cost: $2.3 billion. (AP Photo/US Navy - Seaman Scott Pittman).
Health care? Social Security? An economic stimulus bill? Wars? Bailing out Wall Street banks? Education? Our nation's infrastructure? Each may be a good guess based on the issues that get attention in the mainstream media.
The correct answer may be that 53% of the federal tax being collected in 2010 has already been allocated for defense spending.
According to Philadelphia investigative journalist Dave Lindorff, writing for OpEdNews:
The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing. Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53.3% of total US federal spending.
That would mean the military's share of the approximately $3 trillion 2011 budget is about $1.6 trillion.
On the other hand, anyone can find a handy fact sheet posted on the white house's web site that puts the department of defense's share of the budget at a "mere" $708 billion, seemingly bringing the cost down to about 24 cents on the tax dollar.
So, who's telling the truth? The answer is that both are, depending on how one looks at federal budget allocations.
Just like banks, airlines or a sleazy car dealer, the pentagon and white house's initial invoice does not include hidden costs and amenities, but the final bill does. One of those add-ons is called supplemental spending.
A war appropriations bill to supplementally finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for an additional $106 billion was signed by President Obama last year. The administration is already poised to ask congress for another $35 billion this year, which they will surely get. There are estimates that supplemental war funding could reach $300 billion by the end of 2010. You can view a cost of war counter here. If supplemental war spending is based on what was spent last year, that brings the defense portion of the check to $814 billion.
A closer look reveals that the 2011 defense budget also does not include: spending on veterans affairs - that means VA hospitals, benefits, etc., for any ex-military personnel that are no longer on active or reserve status. The bill for that is $60 billion. That $60 billion does not include any public funds spent on veterans or immediate family that collect public benefits, such as social security.
Homeland security, judging by the title, can be added to the defense part of the check for approximately another $4.3 billion, bringing the bill to approximately $878.3 billion. So can NASA, for another $19 billion, since their primary function is deploying military satellites. And the National Intelligence Program for another (classified) amount, estimated at about $75 billion. Even the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gets billed separately at about $5 billion.
Without even considering the costs of foreign military aid to nations such as Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and Columbia, or the costs of purchasing services from private contractors such as Xe (formerly Blackwater) to provide security in occupied countries, or Halliburton to rebuild them, defense spending is already well over $900 billion. There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and not including Iraq and Afghanistan, approximately 255,000 service members stationed abroad. There are 116,000 in Europe and nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.
Like all government spending, of course, the defense portion has to be financed, so when money is borrowed from whomever or wherever to pay for the $900+ billion tab, add more interest to the approximately $250-400 billion in interest already owed through debt created by defense spending. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion.
Having trouble keeping up with your bill yet? That's because it is designed that way. It gets even more complicated when you have to consider that Social Security expenditures are included in the overall budget, even though it is a trust that is raised and spent seperately from income taxes. What you pay by April 15, 2010 goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. That makes military spending seem smaller in comparison to overall government spending. That also easily puts the figure at about 53 percent.
No matter which figure you want to believe - the $1.6 trillion or the $708 billion, it may be enlightening to put that in two other perspectives.
One is that, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the U.S. accounted for 48% of global military spending in 2008, compared to 5% for Russia, 8% for China, and 20% for all our European allies combined.
The second is that, according to the non-profit National Priorities Project, less than half of the $708 billion estimate - $300 billion, could have paid for health care for 131,780,734 American children for a year, or for 53,872,201 students to receive Pell Grants of $5,550, or for the salaries and benefits of 4,911,552 elementary school teachers for that same year. Restoring roads and bridges in this country to the condition of past decades and keeping them in decent repair so that they do not fall apart would cost $166 billion a year for the next five years.
Tax day is almost here, and whether 24 cents of your hard-earned dollars, 53 cents, or something in between goes toward military spending, there may be a few things to think about. Do we really need to spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on "defense?" Could investing our tax $'s to improve our country within our borders provide a better return of investment than occupying countries halfway around the world? If U.S. taxpayers knew how much they are paying for defense and the wars through direct taxes instead of bookkeeping fraud, how long would this continue?
Let's not forget the human costs of war either...
Comments
Thanks for making me feel REALLY good about paying taxes - NOT! But also thanks for crunching the numbers and putting the info. out there. This makes the $829 billion dollar health care bill that people are throwing tantrums about seem like chump change, since that cost is spread over 10 years and all this military spending is only for one year.
Another commie pinko f*a*g hoping The Terrorists win. We know how powerful they are, no amount of money is too much to protect us. Look how just 20 of em have frightened The World's Most Powerful Nation on Earth, Ever, so much that we're losing our freedoms because we're so scared.
Wait, weren't we fighting them to NOT lose our freedoms?
This argument is nonsense. The US will spend 4.9% of its GDP on defense in 2010, continuing a historical low. From 1950-1977 the US spend more than 5% or its GDP on defense. The average in the 50s and 60s was over 7% and in many years, it was double digits.
You wail about defense spending and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. From 2003-2010 - 7 years - the cost of the Iraq war (costofwar.com) was $717 billion. Obama and the Democrats spent that in an afternoon with the wasted stimulus ($787 billion). The total cost of both wars comes in under $1 trillion, about half of what Obamacare will cost taxpayers.
Value for money, defense spending is one of the few things works in the federal government. I'm still waiting for unemployment to "peak" at 8.5% after spending a trillion on fabricated jobs and make work projects in the Stimulus.
Oh yeah, and defense spending protects every American, even those that think they can live without it. Say that about your stimulus...
WooHoo! This one got the right-wing nuts riled. Hey Duff, the article is about tax $'s, not Gross Domestic Product. Any figure looks low when you consider 1/5th of the GDP is accounted for by health care, and a massive amount of created "money" fabricated by Wall Street...that exists only on bank balance sheets. The truth is, anywhere between 42 and 53 percent of every federal tax dollar collected is spent on defense. How that relates to the GDP is totally irrelevant.
And Sojourner, since idiots like you like to call names, what sort of paranoid moron thinks that the pinkos commies or terrorists are waiting to invade, so we need to spend half of your tax $'s on defense, or half of what the rest of the world spends on defense to protect us against the next 20 lunatics fully armed with box cutters? You should be more worried about what is happening within this country. You're more likely to die from an allergic reaction to peanut butter, or lightning, than you are a terrorist attack.
Since defense is funded by tax money...that makes it, OMG!!! SOCIALIZED!!! Why don't you right-wingers throw a tantrum about that instead of screaming like loser crybabies about anything that actually may help Americans in this country?
Oh, wow, you mean there are folks who believe that THE I.R.S. and how our tax dollars are spent really works for we, the people? It's been a sore spot with me for several years -- Touche' to Gregory for writing an article with supporting documentation that will enlighten the very ones who support The GOP as they continue to try and find ways to stop what would truly be money spent for WE THE PEOPLE! The State of GA just joined the 19 states trying to find The Health Care Bill that PASSED as being unconstitutional. WAKE UP, SCREWBALLS -- it isn't too late to row the boat in lieu of spending time rocking it!
Most of my federal tax money should go to defense (not offense), but the problem is that too much of my money is paid to the federal government. We could probably get by on a 2% sales tax if we would stop invading countries, bailing out banks, and handing out welfare.
I take it that's NOT the sub that I-pod wearing sailor kid crashed recently.??? Nice to know they can just pullanother out of the box to replace it so quick.
Oh well it's only the stupid 53% that are still paying taxes money anyhow.
This "article" is completely wrong, and the author should spend some more time actually doing research than trying to fudge numbers to support an agenda. The defense budget for 2011 is $738 billion, the same as for Social Security. If the defense budget is 53%, then that make it and SS comprise 106%. Now add in education, health care, medicare, etc, etc, etc. Learn how to add.
the amount we spend on military spending is ridiculous. what have we gained from the war on terror? the amount of terrorist acts have ballooned since the invasion of iraq, so much so that it is no doubt the overriding reason why the state department no longer tracks the amount committed each year. we are spending trillions on a program that's creating more terrorists. the world is less safe now. what really irks me is the loss of life on all sides that results from this. the war on terror is a big scam, perpetuated by people who stand to profit. look at some of the tax returns of congress, and count up the defense contractors they hold in their portfolios, oops we can't! i am a navy vet, who was exposed to a lot of high tech equipment, that cost tax payers dearly, we used to hold our breathes just testing some of that crap. as i said earlier it's all a rigged game, a scam, just like the war on drugs, neither will end, as long as certain people can benefit from their continuance.
Mark, if you had read the article more carefully and comprehended it, you would see that the author states that the defense budget for 2011 is anywhere from $708 billion to $1.6 trillion - depending on what is included in the calculation. People like you are a good example of why more money should be spent on education and less on the military and wars.
Sojourner, you are the only scared one, you and your fellow rightwingers without the brains to research your own information. Why are you so scared of the big, bad terrorists? Do you wet your pants thinking about them? You are willing to give up half your tax dollars and your civil liberties so the government can protect you? You big pussy. I am afraid of the corporate fascists taking over this country and taking away the freedom of my children...I am not afraid of an overhyped fictional terrorist enemy. Did you ever see a terrorist as you define terrorists? I sure haven't. But I see corporate fascism rising every day when I watch mainstream network and cable news, see Supreme Court decisions for unlimited corporate funding of campaigns, and deal with big corporations trying to monopolize every industry that we have to deal with on an everyday basis.
Mark, you need to actually read the article before you go about making dumb comments. Nice attempt at trying to sound smart with the numbers...you must be a dumbass teabagger or something.
Duffy918, where do you get your numbers from? Remember, Rush Limbaugh is not a reliable primary source of information, sorry. You are obviously a warmonger who cares nothing about the people of this country. You make me laugh when you say that we get a good "value" out of our defense spending. You obviously wouldn't know a good "value" if it came and bit you in the butt. Do you think spending at the very least $700 billion per year on defense is a good value compared to other free nations that spend maybe one hundredth of that and enjoy more security than we do? You don't see fear of terrorists in other free countries and they have not sacrificed thousands of lives in wars combating terrorism. So what is their secret? How can they spend so much less on defense and still be safe and not the targets of terrorists? They are free countries too, and terrorists hate freedom, right? So why are they not ready with fists raised spending a trillion dollars on defense?
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