You hate the US Military and you demand that defense spending halt - no more funding. You think that we spend too much to protect this country. You’d love to fix the world, starting at home, and fund other programs. Or, just send all the bucks to New Orleans and watch them party it away - ’cause, Bush caused the hurricane - you say New Orleans deserves it.

Funny. But to truly understand just how much is spent on salaries for our brave fighting men and women, materiel (weapons, vehicles, etc), and the operations, you need the right measuring stick. I mean, do you really know how long six inches really is?

I thought not.

In the March 2006 issue of Air Force Magazine (you need to be a member of the Air Force Assoc to subscribe), the Associate Editor Tamar A. Mehuron has the answer: measure against GDP (gross domestic product - stay with me here). To take this one step in providing you with the ammo to eliminate moonbat rhetoric, the following chart shows the US Defense Budget Spending to GDP percentage up against the top 50 countries in the world. Take a look for yourself:

We’re near the bottom, 22 up from the bottom. We spend 3.8% of GDP on Defense. These are in 2004 dollars, and does not take into consideration that which other countries hide from us. For this to be accurate, all parties should be reporting accurately. I suspect no one does, ’cause Iran, Lebanon, and China are all 1.1% to 0.1% (respectively) less than the US. That’s really not that much folks.

The UAE spends far less on defense. Wonder why? We help them and they don’t get attacked. Israel spends far greater, we help them, but they are surrounded - I’d rather have Israel spending more and be alive than the alternative.

Want your eyes to pop out of your sockets? Check out NORTH KOREA! They spend 25%!!! Whoa, Nellie!

Check out the Saudis, Syria, Yemen, Russia, and Cuba. They’re not exactly spending at Wal Mart prices either!

This whole post started in response to these comments I read about the UAE Ports Deal debacle on Sister Toldjah’s blog. One of her readers tossed out the tired and worn out drivel … oh, here’s the exchange:

“The next fuss will be over the greatest Socialist organization in America, the Defense Department. $600 billion dollars a year is far too much money to give to this entitlement program. 1/2 of that amount should be more then enough. Peace”
[Comment 88819]

“At the rate of $2 billion each and every week, time is the one thing we don’t have. New Orleans needs money, we need a universal health care system, we need a ton more money to get our seaports safe. We are still there only so bush and the boy’s can save face at this point. Peace”
[Comment 89196]

Now, after the first to lame attempts from the commenter without a blog of his own, CavalierX steps in with a good one:

“>At the rate of $2 billion each and every week

Aww, it’s kind of cute when Liberals pretend to be fiscal Conservatives…

>New Orleans needs money

…especially when the mask slips seconds later and they start screeching for money for their social programs. Personally, I don’t want my tax dollars rebuilding a city in a flood zone, below sea level, that was destroying the environment by its very presence. You do realise that the city was causing the mass destruction of the wetlands? Or don’t you care about the environment?”
[Comment 89362]
CavalierX

So, the unknown comic tries to pitch a slider:

“Tax dollars are money. Money is budgeted. Too much money is budgeted for the Defense Department. It should be cut by at least $225 billion in 2007. Peace”
[Comment 89555]

And, CavalierX hits it outta the park:

“>Too much money is budgeted for the Defense Department.

It’s the only Constitutionally-mandated expense, and one of the few legitimate expenses, of the Federal government. It’s all the useless feel-good programs that don’t actually have any effect on the problems they’re supposed to solve that waste my money. If it weren’t for the Defense Department, you’d be speaking German or Japanese. On the other hand, there would probably be forced euthanasia for the useless.”
[Comment 89557]
CavalierX

Really, we don’t spend very much. In fact, we should be spending more. Let’s just whack the pay scales in Washington DC and give that money to all these pet programs the moonbats want. Next, divert the other expenses to the Defense Budget and give all the fighting men and women more pay, more benefits, and full on retirement ’til we meet our maker.

Sounds fair to me!

Thanks and References
Bloggers I Read
Sister Toldjah’s UAE Port Deal Post

Reference
Air Force Magazine, March 2006 (Air Force Assoc)

TAGS: Fix4RSO, Milblog, Military, Defense+Spending, Wake+Up

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 15th, 2006 at 1:13 and is filed under PoliCubed, ShortPurview, TargetFixation, WayPoint. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.