Defense Spending the Top Priority, Critics Fear
Sunday 30 May 2010
by: Yana Kunichoff, t r u t h o u t | Report
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Staff Sgt. Liesl Marelli / DVIDSHUB, designshard)
As the United States retains its place as the world's largest defense spender for another year, and the Cost of War counter inches toward the $1 trillion mark, community activists bemoan the priorities of the Obama administration.
"On the front lines in public schools and places like Chicago where I teach, we are seeing devastating budget cuts," said Jesse Sharkey, a ninth and twelfth grade social studies teacher at Senn High School in Chicago.
"It's very apparent when you think about the spending priorities in our country that there seems to always be enough money for military adventures overseas but not enough for our classrooms at home."
On May 30, 2010, at 10:06am, the National Priorities Project /Cost of War counter - designed to count the total money spent for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars - is expected reach the $1 trillion mark. Meanwhile, a report recently released by the US-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation (CACN) finds that the United States remains the global leaders in defense spending.
To date, $747.3 billion has been appropriated for the U.S. war in Iraq and $299 billion for Afghanistan. Congress is set to add an estimated $37 billion to the current $136.8 billion total spending for the current fiscal year through a pending supplement.
At the same time, the U.S. budget deficit is $1.27 trillion and accruing interest. According to a graph in the Washington Post about President Obama's $3.8 trillion budget proposal for fiscal year 2011, $895 billion is expected to be allocated to defense spending and $730 billion to social security.
Meanwhile, the fate of over 100,000 teachers nationwide hangs on a $23 billion aid measure for the nation's public schools being pushed through by the Obama administration and Democratic leaders, reported Democracy Now!.
In Chicago, says Sharkey, "Programs like elementary school language, kindergarten and busing are all on the chopping block," and there is talk of laying off 3,000 public school teachers.
In an analysis of how far the $1 trillion spent on defense funding could reach in other areas, the National Priorities Project found a long list of different underfunded services that the money would significantly bolster. For example, $1 trillion would provide 440.7 million children with health care for one year, equip 1 billion homes with renewable electricity for one year and pay the salaries of 16.4 million elementary school teachers for one year.
A spending priority for Sharkey, whose high school shares a building with the Rickover Naval Academy, would be vocational programs in public schools. "One of the moves that we've seen in the past ten years is the underfunding of the vocational programs," said Sharkey, "an all-out elimination." Changes such as these push many students into the military, he says, rather than teaching them valuable vocational skills for alternate careers.
The Department of Defense's fiscal year 2009 "Active Duty Military Personnel Strengths by Regional Area and by Country" report says the U.S. has 1,417,747 troops in more than 138 countries around the world, including the U.S, with 285,773 of them abroad.
According to the CACN report, the total U.S. defense budget has increased approximately 67 percent from fiscal year 2001 to fiscal year 2011, growing from $432 billion to $720 billion. These figures are adjusted for inflation. In 2008, the U.S.-approved defense budget authority - which included "the Pentagon base budget, Department of Energy-administered nuclear weapons activities and supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan" - was $696.3 billion.
"Examples of wasteful spending span every branch of the Department of Defense," said Laicie Olson, a defense spending analyst at the US-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. "At a time of growing concern over the federal deficit, it is increasingly important that all parts of the budget be scrutinized. Defense is no exception."
As of the 2007 fiscal year, according to figures collected by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States spends 4.1 percent of its Gross National Product on military defense spending.
It also spends 44 percent of the global total of defense expenditure, according to the CANC report.
As the CACN report notes, the Congressional Budget Office has regularly warned that discretionary spending, including defense, will come under increased pressure in the coming years.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has repeatedly called for the elimination of wasteful and ineffective defense systems. In a speech aimed at overhauling the Pentagon's budget and restructuring its bureaucracy, Gates said, "It is not a great mystery what needs to change. What it takes is the political will and willingness, as Eisenhower possessed, to make hard choices - choices that will displease powerful people both inside the Pentagon and out."
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MLK explained this
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 09:47 — Anonymous (not verified)MLK explained this eloquently decades ago, and others before him. History shows us again and again when the militarists are demobilized peaceful outcomes are possible. The break up of the USSR, for example. Not the nutty right wing version of of how this came about. Read this: http://hnn.us/articles/2732.html
1 Trillion for 2011 didn't
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 09:54 — Anonymous (not verified)1 Trillion for 2011 didn't make this clear?
"As the United States
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 11:29 — Liced-Christ (not verified)"As the United States retains its place as the world's largest defense spender for another year, and the Cost of War counter inches toward the $1 trillion mark, community activists bemoan the priorities of the Obama administration."
Now, recall Feinstein's famous declaration (while the health care debate was in full swing) echoing the exact same sentiment of the Republicans --- that Universal health Care would create too much of a federal deficit. We cannot afford it, she said, lying through her ugly Republican teeth. We cannot bury ourselves in MORE DEBT, she said. That's right, "more debt," as though the word debt does not apply to military, pentagon and war monies. Of course, the word debt is used indiscriminately and manipulatively by ALL the anti-big-government, neo-liberal politicians like Feinstein. Feinstein is just one example of the "blue-dog", centrist mentality. She, and all the other "blue dogs," including this neo-liberally indoctrinated Obama and his mousy VP, must GO --- be cast out of office in 2012! If we get another neo-liberal --- Republican or Democrat --- expect this country to continue to convulse on itself in upcoming (and repeated) economic and moral death spasms.There's no way out except to get these bastards out of office, not one at a time, but in one fell swoop.
Fear Obama. Why not place
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 11:57 — Carl (not verified)Fear Obama.
Why not place the blame squarely on Obama? He has pushed military spending higher than Bush ever dared. His recent plan is to freeze domestic spending for five years and use all the savings for more military spending. Why did the author ignore that basic face?
Why do so many "liberal" and "progressives" still support this ultra-right wing President?
"The warring nation becomes
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 12:01 — willem malten (not verified)"The warring nation becomes barren"
old chinese proverb
You didn't even mention the budget increase for the Nuclear Weapon laboratories, which is up by 10% or so, heralding in a "golden age" for the Los Alamos National Laboratory with an whopping increase of about 22% in their budget . Why is the Obama administration espousing to a 'Nuclear Free World" and meanwhile making the largest investments in useless nuclear weapons since the Manhattan project? Is the nobel peace price just a tool for deceptive propaganda ?
In Los Alamos, NM, they are building the new CMRR bunker, compared by officials to the Taj Mahal, for upgrades in nuclear weapon research and development at the tune of 4.2 billion dollars. This money should truly be spend on education and green conversion. Please speak out on this, visit LASG.org.
Oh please, it's not just
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 12:49 — Anonymous (not verified)Oh please, it's not just classrooms, it's any kind of infrastructure, it's Amtrak---for all the funding for studies of high speed rail--Congress & the prez could not bring themselves to fund Amtrak at the level that the Reauthorization legislation passed just a year or so ago called for.
That's even though Amtrak's ridership has continued to rise (nationally, some lines have seen temporary or longer decreases in ridership) while the airlines, until very recently, have seen their ridership substantially decrease.
Let's see, we also have Bernanke issuing major hints that neither Medicare nor Social Security are "affordable" even though Social Security can pay all benefits for another 30-40 years.
But we can still afford a bloated military defense complex that enriches friends of Bush & Cheney & the Gramms and probably Norquist (gov't small enough to drown in the bathtub but I'm sure he exempts the military from that) and the jerk who brought us the "Contract With America" another one of the ever-so-moral GOP.
Oh and we can still afford huge bonuses and to bail out the banksters by spending hundreds of billions to prop up house prices. Some jerks in Congress are even pushing legislation that subsidizes the construction of NEW homes--like we don't have a huge oversupply of housing as it is.
I'd say, time for a new party--one that doesn't take corporate donations and that perhaps spends 70% of its time working for legislation that benefits the public interests, not those of the wealthy. Maybe 30% of the time those interests coincide.
"If we build it..they will
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 16:32 — Anonymous (not verified)"If we build it..they will come." So let us give Name to a National Party that the People can come to ? It most assuredly is not the Democrat or Republican parties. They have proven that they are the Same in all but name...and mean us all no good. They are both controlled by the Zionist that now have control of Congress, the White House, the Judicial, and the Treasury through the Federal Reserve that Owns us all.
Only if half the US Supreme Court dropped dead today and a whole new mindset was sworn in, we may never be able to recover this Nation. We are already a Fascist Nation in all but name only. (Fascist=Corporate Controlled) We have long since ceased being a Democratic Country or a Republic. After the past 65+ years, how can there be any question ? Is this what we are allowing our dear loved ones to go to other countries to Fight and Die for...so the Corporations can get bigger and more powerful while the Zionist Jews sit back in their Secret Covens and applaud their success at our expense ?
Even if it is an exercise in futility, we must go to the polls, en masse, and Vote every last one of those traitors out and vote for non-politicians. No more Career Politicians. We have been lied to by every one of them. None of them have told us the whole Truth. Even the handful that 'mean well' have been too cowardly to speak up for the People, even when it was plain we were being sold a lie.
Take Colin Powell as a good example. His lying prevarications at the UN has cost Millions of lives dead and even more millions scattered and caused Millions more to hate us. Why wouldn't they ? We would have believed him then, and his name would not now be anathema. He was not the only one-- many others did the same thing. All those in the MSM for starters. Wake up, people, we are losing our country.
Let's start by calling it
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 19:57 — Anonymous (not verified)Let's start by calling it "military spending" and use the old name, "Department of War". The charade of "defense" is used to cover the true nature of aggressive, expansionist, imperialist military adventures. Ike was right to warn us of the growing military-industrial complex with its political servants.
The military NEEDS to be big
Sun, 05/30/2010 - 21:49 — Anonymous (not verified)The military NEEDS to be big and strong and is one of a very FEW mandates of a federal government, THE REST WERE LEFT TO THE STATES. The ignorance of the Leftists on this reply thread are staggering.
Hey Lice Christ== Feinstein IS A DEMOCRAT, not a Republican as you BLASTED...Ha ha...now you probably like her, right?
YES there is WASTE at EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT...however, the US MILITARY is one of the FINEST fighting forces on the planet (along with the IDF) They exist to keep you and your family, children and grandchildren safe. Believe me, the military isn't somehow causing folks to be bad guys...THAT IS DUMB LIBERAL GOBBLEDY GOOK... The military is keeping US SAFE.
Always look on the bright
Mon, 05/31/2010 - 09:45 — brother_unknown (not verified)Always look on the bright side of life. In a few more months the military will have grown to the point that the U.S.economy, already strained to the breaking point, will collapse. Like the cancer, which our military so closely resembles, it will soon destroy its host. 2011: The military take-over of America.
When you see a post like
Tue, 06/01/2010 - 10:09 — hark (not verified)When you see a post like anon 02:49, you can only despair. As long as half the American people remain so brainwashed as this there is no hope.