Military Spending

From Zanecorpwiki

Military spending is by any measure far in excess of what is necessary to keep America safe. Whether or not the war in Iraq or Afghanistan will on net yield positive or negative results is very much an open question and one we won't be able to answer for quite some time. We can say, however, that given the tremendous amount of money spent on these efforts, that the money could have gone to much better use.

Now, you may say, "But what about the almost 3,000 people that died from the 9/11 attacks? We need a strong defense to counter the new terrorist threat."^[1] This is true, but how do you stop terrorists? History clearly shows that military force alone is not the answer, and since we have sworn off nation building, then it looks like we're going to largely repeat the mistakes of the past in Afghanistan and are currently sowing a new crop of terrorists. Iraq is less clear, but even if we are doing good there, on the question of terrorism, we almost certainly have made things worse for ourselves.

The cost of the war to date will be about $2.4 trillion dollars^[2] and the final cost much higher than that. That's two whole years of all individual federal income tax revenues.^[3] You want to cut taxes: don't fight wars of aggression.^{[notes 1]}

Even setting these wars aside, the size of our conventional and nuclear arms far outstrips anything all our enemies, or even all non-allied states have. In fact, it outstrips everything our allies have. In fact, the US spends more on their military than the rest of the world combined.^[4] We could cut our military budget by 50% and still field overwhelming force against any aggressor.

To my mind, this makes "less taxes" synonymous with military spending cuts, yet you never hear anything about this. Between 20-50% of federal expenditures go to the military.^[5]

In short, on the low end, you could accomplish a 12% saving in expenditures, cut taxes, and start paying down the debt and still maintain an army that's over five times the strength of any possibly enemy. And have money left over to do real counter terrorism.

Notes

1. ↑ A response to the 9/11 attacks was both necessary and a given, but ousting the Taliban was effectively accomplished a long time ago. The great bulk of the cost is down to the fighting in Iraq and continued fighting in Afghanistan. Neither of which has anything to do with defending America, as that purpose was accomplished long ago.

References

1. ↑ http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_died_in_the_September_11_2001_attacks
2. ↑ http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2007-10-23-wacosts_N.htm
3. ↑ http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=102886,00.html
4. ↑ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm and http://www.globalfirepower.com/defense-spending-budget.asp and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
5. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget and http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm; the larger number is coming from a group with a clear agenda, but the same could be argued for the other side as well. In any case, the $2.4 trillion for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars certainly give lie to the $38 Billion number for "the war on terror" and support the idea that the government is low balling.