US Defense Budget Will Equal Rest of Worlds Combined "Within 12 Months"

[chlamor]

US defence budget will equal ROW combined "within 12 months"

By Guy Anderson Editor of Jane's Defence Industry

Defence expenditure in the US will equal that of the rest of the world combined within 12 months, making it "increasingly pressing" for European contractors to develop a "closer association" with the US, corporate finance group PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) says.

Its report - 'The Defence Industry in the 21st Century' by PwC's global aerospace and defence leader Richard Hooke - adds that "the US is in the driving seat", raising the prospect of a future scenario in which it could "dominate the supply of the world's arms completely".

The US defence budget reached US$417.4 billion in 2003 - 46 per cent of the global total.

Less than two per cent of the US defence budget is spent outside its home market, the report notes, and of this around one per cent goes to UK contractors.

http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdi/jdi050504_1_n.shtml

[whistle]

1. It is $417.4 billion plus $87.0 billion supplemental or almost...

...$505 billion. That would put it over the 50% mark, yes? In 2006 budget I read it will hit $600 billion with all suplementals.

[chlamor]

2. Yes

there are also many programs that are off budget and seen only by special congressional committees who rubeer stamp them. Black budget programs. The actual Pentagon budget is easily $700 bill per year probably more.

Now if you added the amount of cash from private sector investment into programs that have military applications we would see a figure closer to a $1trillion/yr.

Add to this various programs which are security oriented programs-prison, policing etc. and it all becomes a grotesque sight. We live in a most militarized society, violence pervades the fabric of our society. This is not simply a Bush Admin issue it is the national character/identity of the culture of conquest-USA.

[whistle]

7. We need some good trustworthy accountants and auditors to gather...

...up all of the financial smoke screen accounts and get a true picture of where American tax dollars and spending are actually going, including the $1.3 trillion social security surplus that Bush spent and now wants to default on.

[chlamor]

14. I'd like to see such an operation

If one estimated all facets of the National Security State the figure would be mind boggling. Another example would be the research and development in Universities that has military applications. How much money is spent on this each year?

[whistle]

48. Right, those being tax exempt dollars too, so big defence...

...corporations can shelter those research based monies and avoid paying taxes.

[SheilaT]

3. I thought it was already there

and had been for several years now.

Certainly if you could include all of the Black Budget items, we're long since there.

It's also not sustainable over the long run, and will very likely be the cause of our tumble from power, which when it finally comes, will be very rapid.

[Lorien]

4. The Soviet Union all over again n/t

[Johnyawl]

8. You're quite right on this point, Sheila...

...It's also not sustainable over the long run, and will very likely be the cause of our tumble from power, which when it finally comes, will be very rapid.

This is exactly what caused the Soviet Union to collapse. A bloated, military budget that it's economy could no longer afford to support. We're fast approaching that point. The only thing proping it up at the moment is the overseas buyers of our debt.

[MisterP]

19. I think it was "just" more than the top 10 after us combined

now it's all 212 polities

[saigon68]

35. Its a "WAR OF CONQUEST" budget not a defense budget

Defense budget, My ASS

It is a budget to make the world economically advantageous for a bunch of powerful, hateful, right wing, NeoCon billionaires and billionaire wannabees. Led by the Bush criminals and their ilk.

[NeoConsSuck]

45. Bingo Saigon!

this isn't about governments protecting their citizens. It's about capitalist conquests.

Saddamn Hussein was hated, not because of his human rights violations, but rather, because he nationalized Iraq's oil industry. That is a big no-no to capitalist countries who are owned and guided by corporations. A countrie's natural resources don't belong to governments or citizens, it rightfully belongs to corporations </sarcasm>

Why do you think Chavez is painted as the next coming of Satan? Could it be because he has the crazy idea that the oil under the countrie's soil belongs to the citizens, not the corporations?

During Vietnam, the oft repeated phrase was, "America is protecting it's vital interests." My mother always said, they never give the corporation names behind these "vital interests". Even in the 1960's, she knew what America was coming to. History has proven her right.

[saigon68]

46. A corporation name behind these "vital interests" = Dow Chemical

Those folks who along with DuPont brought about

"BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY"


Ask any Vet dying of AGENT ORANGE OR AGENT BLUE EXPOSURE



God Bless Col. David Hackworth R.I.P.

[Inland]

5. If we are so powerful,

how come the brits still spell the word as "defence"?

Submit. Submit. Submit.

[DrDebug]

9. Because they speak English

catalogue, catalogue, colour, defence, encyclopaedia, honour, jewellery, moustache, programme, standardise etc.

The Americans simply spell it wrong due to eons of ignorance!

[DrDebug]

6. And that's just the part of the Department of Defense

The Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think
January 18, 2004
Robert Higgs
The San Francisco Chronicle

When President Bush signed the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2004 on November 24, 2003, the event received considerable attention in the news media. At $401.3 billion, the public's visible cost of funding the nation's defense seemed to be reaching astronomical heights, and the president took pains to justify that enormous cost by linking it to the horrors of 9/11 and to the “war on terror.” He pledged that “we will do whatever it takes to keep our nation strong, to keep the peace, and to keep the American people secure,” clearly implying that such payoffs would accrue from the expenditures and other measures that the act authorizes.

Although the public may appreciate that $401.3 billion is a great deal of money, few citizens realize that it is only part of the total bill for defense. Lodged elsewhere in the budget, other lines identify funding that serves defense purposes just as surely as—sometimes even more surely than—the money allocated to the Department of Defense (DoD). On occasion, commentators take note of some of these additional defense-related budget items, such as the nuclear-weapons activities of the Department of Energy (DoE), but many such items, including some extremely large ones, remain generally unrecognized.
(...)

Defense Outlays in Fiscal Year 2002 (billions of dollars)

Department of Defense                                          344.4
Department of Energy                                            18.5
Department of State                                             17.6
Department of Veterans Affairs                                  50.9
Agencies incorporated into Department of Homeland Security      17.5
Department of Justice (homeland security)                       2.1
Department of Transportation (homeland security)                1.4
Department of the Treasury (homeland security)                  0.1
National Aeronautics & Space Administration (homeland security) 0.2
Other agencies (homeland security)                              4.7
Interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays   138.7

Total                                                         596.1

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253

Please note that the figures are from 2002.

This link is also nice to know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_budget - The next NATO member is the UK with 1/10th of the budget the US has (but it is not 1/10th smaller). Russia spend $13bl in 2003 nowadays, since they have other problems to deal with (like a * visit)

[UpInArms]

38. something to prove how far these cretins have gone

from representing a "conservative" party:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,
a theft fom those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world
in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of laborers, the genius of its scientists,
the hopes of its children.... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of
threatening war, it is humanity hanging fom an iron cross."

Dwight Eisenhower

(edit for html)

[DrDebug]

40. And just think of how much those amounts really are

Because you have $500bl + $250bl in other departments. If you compare that to the GDP of $12439bl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) ) then you'll notice that it is 6% of the total.

What can you do with $2500 per person. You can feed a lot of hungry people, clothe a lot of people, shelter a lot of people.

But * is not Dwight Eisenhower. Somehow I think that even Nixon was a better and bigger man than *.

[Frederik]

10. Thanks for posting

It is nothing but pure unadulterated insanity. The worst thing is, there's a bipartisan consensus about this, and there's a consensus in the corporate media, that this is somehow "necessary". While in reality a tenth of that budget would suffice perfectly to protect the American "homeland" from any conceivable military threat. But hey, silly me for thinking that is the purpose of the "defence" budget.

This is the one and only reason for the bottomless US federal debt and budget deficit as well (Dubya's tax cuts for the elite didn't help either, but that would actually have been affordable, though still not justifiable, without the bloated defence budget).

[clem_c_rock]

11. The desperate last gasp of an empire

And what happens when the Asians say fuck you, jump off the speeding car that's headed for the brick wall at 90 mph by dropping our currency?

They're the ones paying for our PNAC driven psychopath military which is seeking nothing more than to rule the world.

[bemildred]

12. And for this we get what?

Iraq? The mess in Iraq?
:puke:

[gratuitous]

16. And insufficient armor for vehicles

And Ospreys that are unsafe at any speed or height, and poor pay for the rank and file military, and heueueueueuge cost overruns by contractors such as Halliburton and Custer Battles, and . . . Well, you get the idea. And for that we sacrifice our poorest and most vulnerable citizens, can't maintain our roads, can't build or improve schools, can't even feed or house our own citizens.

But it's a very rewarding and honorable profession! All their commercials say so.

[Redstone]

13. You mean it doesn't already?

I'm surprised.

Redstone

[aneerkoinos]

15. Smart

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that well over half, soon 2/3rds of US Federal bugdet just blown up. I believe only other country in the world with similar ratio is North "Bonkers" Korea.

[zara]

17. Think Ancient Rome

if you want to understand Bush and the NeoCons. Many have made this point. They think: Might is right. Hegemony is the key to prosperity. We outspend them all.
But can 3% of the world really subjugate the rest?

[MisterP]

20. they had to end up importing foreigners to guard their borders

so that'd be Italians along the Gulf Coast, French in Virginia, and Frisians in the Northeast.

[leesa]

18. Well, now we know where the 9 billion Iraq lost has gone....was this

funded from the 2-3 trillion stolen at the DOD

[chlamor]

21. Winning the arms race while blowing off limbs

“The U.S. has taken measures that have started a new arms race. Despite developing into the mightiest military power in history, and which no country on earth is in a position to challenge, it is developing a new generation of nuclear weapons.”

[IChing]

22. I Posted this this morning

didn't think I could post it here because of the date of the article.

[IntiRaymi]

23. Waste, Fraud & Abuse by the Corporations

This massive defense outlay, and GEN Myers saying that we are overextended and that we would not be able to win another war.
We, the taxpayers, are being fed the patriotism Kool-Aid while they rob us blind.

[Eloriel]

24. Hmm, it's been a long, long time since I've heard a better argument

for letting WOMEN rule the world. :evilgrin:

I'm actually not joking, tho (edited to say I'm overstating it a little -- what I'm really after is TOTAL equality for women and men, not to switch to a matriarchy). This Patriarchy crap has GOT to go before we completely kill the planet and all living things on it, via one route or the other (directly via nuclear holocaust or similar or indirectly by just making the whole place uninhabitable).

And yeah, there are SOME women who aren't any better than MOST men, but the vast majority of women as a group are life-givers and -preservers, not patriarchal maniacs suffering from terminal testosterone poisoning.

/feminist anti-patriarchy rant

[chlamor]

26. No No No

Eloriel you seem to have had the open shot and then hesitated and missed.

Go for it with all your womenly wisdom. In my view, as a male who does not pretend to be sensitive but does like to be considered alive and aware men have completely fucked up everything and have therefore lost any right they have to decision making powers. In time, say 2 or 3 thousand years they may get a few privileges returned. But I guarantee if matrilineal principles are brought into the way of the world the non-human creatures will breathe a sigh of relief-Margaret Thatcher excluded from all discussion groups.

Women have the seed-women give life. Men envy this and in their longing to control and possess they destroy.

Best book on earth ever on so many different levels: Woman and Nature (The Roaring Inside Her) by Susan Griffin

Would love to see you start a thread on this topic in GD-It'd be fun. I would suggest that the entirety of politics is by nature patriarchical and inherently violent. The 'political' is a smokescreen to wither away energies and deep thought into how our relationships with the land and each other are arranged.

On Edit:Technology is man's mani-infestation as a conquering mechanism

[SGBL]

30. I call bull shit!

Take a look at the proportion of female congressmembers that supported Iraq war part deux. Then you get back to me on your BS.

[IChing]

25. GE= NBC and other arms dealer stocks are good.

Richard Hooke - adds that "the US is in the driving seat", raising the prospect of a future scenario in which it could "dominate the supply of the world's arms completely".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1766876&mesg_id=1766876 original thread

[daleo]

27. The culture of death

This massive military overspending is evidence of something deeply wrong in U.S. culture. I am aware that many Americans do not agree with this high level of military expenditure, although you don't see it challenged much.

I think it is no accident that the U.S. is the only major industrialized country that doesn't have a properly designed public health care system, while spending so much on the military. Part of it is the diversion of money, but I think a culture of death is a significant factor as well. Public health care doesn't fit well with a culture of death.

[NeoConsSuck]

43. Good point..

I had read an article a long time that expressed the view that the rest of the industrialized countries are more than happy to see America's bloated military budget. Let America use their citizen's money to fight 'the bad guys'. The other countries have better things to do with their citizen's money: health care, education, infrastructure, etc..

A republican said it best:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 16, 1953

[KamaAina]

28. Remember, even if you win the arms race,

you're still a rat.

All right, all right, so it doesn't quite fit. Or maybe it does...

[IChing]

29. you come in last place

in the human race.
"if you win the arms race you come in last place in the human race" iching.

[understandinglife]

31. Here is what all that money buys

An example of what a bunch of tax payer dollars being spent by an illegitimate president does to humanity -- an illegal war and countless crimes against humanity

Support PDAmerica:
http://www.pdamerica.org/field/Press-Release-Bush-Blair.php

Peace.


www.missionnotaccomplished.us - STOP THE ATROCITIES; INDICT AND PROSECUTE BU$H AND ALL THE OTHER WAR CRIMINALS

[Geo55]

50. This pic was in my local rag......

Brings tears.....as a nation, we are screwed.

[progressoid]

32. Hmm, I wonder if excessive defense spending has ever harmed

a nation?

[IChing]

33. Athens?

and their fall after the Sicily failure

[Nevernose]

51. If you think Reagan was a hero

Then you have the USSR as an example. Of course, I don't hold much stock in the theory that we had anything to do with the Soviet Union's collapse, but the Repukes sure do... (or was that your point?)

[progressoid]

52. Reagan, USSR. Both great examples.

[Festivito]

34. Not including interest on borrowing that WILL be paid. nt.

[Disturbed]

36. Amerika the bringer of,,,

death and destruction. Amerika is on the course of subjugation via the military, IMF, WTO and all of the NAFTA and offshoots. Will the European Union, Russia, China, India, South America and Asia bow down?

[LynnTheDem]

37. Now THAT is the definition of IMMORAL. Millions die of starvation yearly

And look what we spend the entire world's budget on.

[liveoaktx]

39. But we can't fund Social Security?

[mitchum]

41. Does anyone have the percentage figure of just how much...

of the public treasury goes toward "defense"?
I recall that it was already an insane 42% in the 90s. I imagine it is much higher now.

[DrDebug]

42. I think it is less, but it depends on your definition of course

http://www.classbrain.com/artteenst/publish/article_136.shtml

Total outlays 2004  $2,229 bl
Receipt             $1,922 bl

Defense             $  390 bl
Non defense         $  429 bl
Social security     $  493 bl
Medicare            $  255 bl
Medicaid            $  185 bl
Other               $  301 bl

But since the total amount spend on the military is more like $750bl it would amount to about 33%

[chlamor]

44. It's around 50%

T o t a l   F e d e r a l   F u n d s    ( O u t l a y s ) :   $ 2, 1 3 0   B i l l i o n


These figures are from a line-by-line analysis of detailed tables in the “Analytical Perspectives” book of the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2006. The percentages are federal funds, which do not include trust funds — such as Social Security — that are raised and spent separately from income taxes. What you pay (or don’t pay) by April 15, 2005, goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. The government practice of combining trust and federal funds began in the 1960s during the Vietnam War, thus making the human needs portion of the budget seem larger and the military portion smaller.

“Current military” includes Dept. of Defense ($427 billion), the military portion from other departments ($106 billion), anticipated “supplemental allowance” ($25 billion), and an unbudgetted estimate of supplemental appropriations ($85 billion). “Past military” represents veterans’ benefits plus 80% of the interest on the debt. Analysts differ on how much of the debt stems from the military; other groups estimate 50% to 60%. We use 80% because we believe if there had been no military spending most (if not all) of the national debt would have been eliminated. For further explanation, see box at bottom of this page.

http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm

Current Military, $558B:Military Personnel $109B, Operation and Maintenance $154B, Procurement $81B, Research and Development $68B, Construction $7B, Family Housing $4B, Retired Pay $46B, DoE Nuclear Weapons $17B, NASA (50%) $8B, International Security $8B, Homeland Sec. (50%) $16B, Ex. Off. Pres. $78, Misc. $4B, “Allowance for Anticipated Supplemental” (Iraq) $25B
UNBUDGETTED: $85B (est.):Most of the spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is not included in the President’s Budget but the Administration has announced it will seek this money as supplemental appropriations later in year as it has in the past two years

Past Military, $384B: Veterans’ Benefits $70B; Interest on National Debt (80% estimated to be created by military spending) $314B

Human Resources, $722B: Education, Health/Human Services, HUD, Food/Nutrition programs, Labor Department, Soc. Sec. Admin.

General Government, $261B: Legislative, Justice, State Dept., International Affairs, Treasury, Gov’t. Personnel, 20% interest on national debt, NASA (50%), Homeland Security (25%)

Physical Resources, $120B: Agriculture, Commerce, Energy, Interior, Transportation, Environmental Protection, Army Corps Engineers, NSF, FCC, Homeland Security (25%)

[Jose Diablo]

47. The level of "defence spending" is justified IMO

because it will be the USA against the world very shortly.

I hope the Republican supporters to Bu$h understand all this hatred is gonna cost them dearly. It will be their sons and daughters that will pay, because it will be their ticket that is punched.

[chlamor]

49. Ye shall reap what ye sow

it is more like the USA assaulting and /or arrogantly snubbing its nose at the rest of the world as well as looting their banana trees.

This behavioral pattern is not singular to this admin. they just are more openly sinister and impatient in their parasitic ways.

The WAR spending in this military state is in no way defensible. It is destructive to our communities, our environment and our spirits.