I hope everyone got everything they wanted for Christmas. The Pentagon certainly did.
The hypocritical cries from many of those same 100 senators and those "voices" in the House for the need to cut spending and rein in the deficit are sure to follow.
Nah, no need to debate or discuss, everything's on the right track and headed in the right direction. Hmm, I've heard those words somewhere before.
A little perspective on defense spending:
Nobel Peace Prize, anyone? Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times has more:
Meanwhile states from New York to Illinois to California are facing a looming crisis in their state budgets, requiring cutbacks in social services for those who need them most in these tough economic times, and the laying-off of teachers, police, and firefighters.
A few words of advice from the president who warned us about the dangers of the Military-Industrial complex:
"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. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense...Is there no other way the world may live?"
Dwight David Eisenhower, Apr. 16, 1953.
"On December 22 both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill authorizing $725 billion for next year's Defense Department budget. The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, was approved by all 100 senators as required and by a voice vote in the House."
The hypocritical cries from many of those same 100 senators and those "voices" in the House for the need to cut spending and rein in the deficit are sure to follow.
"The December 22 vote in the House was, as Associated Press accurately described it, conducted without debate or discussion - and "without major restrictions on the conduct of operations" - particularly in regards to the $158.7 billion for the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Nah, no need to debate or discuss, everything's on the right track and headed in the right direction. Hmm, I've heard those words somewhere before.
A little perspective on defense spending:
* [T]he amount is the highest in constant dollars (pegged at any given year's dollar and adjusted for inflation) since 1945, the final year of the Second World War.
* Next year's defense authorization of $725 billion compares to, according to the Center for Defense Information, a Pentagon budget of $444.6 billion in 1946; $460.4 billion in 1968, the highest yearly amount during the Vietnam War; and $443.4 billion in 1988, the highest during the eight years of the Ronald Reagan administration's massive military buildup
* Pentagon spending has increased by 100 percent since 1998 and "the Obama budget plans to spend more on the Pentagon over eight years than any administration has since World War II."
Nobel Peace Prize, anyone? Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times has more:
* The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined...we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.
* The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined.
Meanwhile states from New York to Illinois to California are facing a looming crisis in their state budgets, requiring cutbacks in social services for those who need them most in these tough economic times, and the laying-off of teachers, police, and firefighters.
A few words of advice from the president who warned us about the dangers of the Military-Industrial complex:
"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. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense...Is there no other way the world may live?"
Dwight David Eisenhower, Apr. 16, 1953.
Glad you got another job, AH. There's nothing like income to make the New Year bright.
Old Generals have to be factored in with the others.
Now that I'm in the oil & gas industry...The hell with defense and space exploration. :O)
NOT if you are into S&M.
Great article Des and RockheadedMama I am in agreement with you again.
By the by, a lump of coal is better than a bag of switches anytime!
It's taken 18 years to fuel up the aircraft carrier in the front field, but it hasn't rained! But it looks cool with the blimp tethered on top of it...
WOW!!!! You'd a thunk 1,200, give or take, F-35's woulda been plenty.
How come a destroyer costs more than an aircraft carrier? I think we mighta got "hosed" on that deal.
B-2's....are those the "invisible" bombers???
If so, how are we gonna KNOW for sure we GOT 21??
Great post Des.
And I would like to mention that one of Obama's campaign promises that he decided to keep, was to increase defense spending.
I would also like to point out that I think we do those that are for this kind of defense spending a favor by saying "we don't need to be the world's policmen". This is because that statement assumes that our troops are keeping the peace, when in fact they are either in wars, or...are there to ensure corrupt governments stay in power, for the sake of large corporations.
Those are not duties that policmen carry out, but rather thugs.
It's telling that just as our politicians favor tax cuts but will not say what is the ideal tax rate...they will not identify what is the ideal amount to spend on the military.
Any real examination of those issues would unveil the absurdity of the current situation.
Just a little quick Googling to update Ike’s numbers:
One B-2 bomber costs $1.2 billion. We have 21.
One F-35 fighter costs $130 million. We've ordered 2,443.
One destroyer costs $6 billion. We have 60.
One aircraft carrier costs $4.5 billion. We have 10.
Just imagine where we, as a country, would be if we hadn't gotten ourselves embroiled in the wars we did over the past thirty years.
Are we all aware that those "guided munitions" we heaped on Sadam, TWICE, cost $1 million EACH. A single fighter plane "sortie" sometimes cost $500K.
Dwight David Eisenhower looks like a Democrat in today's world.
Where have you gone Dwight D. Eisenhower, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Wooo ooooo!
All I am saying is give peace a chance.
Ding a ling, hear them ring, it's Christmas time at Boeing and Haliburton.
There's a crazy little shack beyond the track.
Louie, Louiii, Oh, oh, we gotta go.
Every night in bed I play a little game.
If people truly wanted to cut spending - this is the area to cut it! Imagine what monies would be freed up, if our military spending was only double what our next competitor (China) was. (As Des said, it is now 6 times China's expenditures!) If *conservatives* were any where near being conservatives, they would be insisting that our military presence in the world would have to be supplemented by other NATO members. That we can not be the world's policeman. Other countries don't want to do this as they do not want to "waste" as much on "defense" as we do. Since those countries, for the most part, do not have two oceans separating them from nuclear powers, how is it that they are "safe enough" but we are not? I think it has nothing to do with being safe, but everything to do with defense contractors and McMansions.