With a possible government shutdown looming (and both sides balking during negotiations), perhaps it is time America make the tough choice that for some reason people don’t like talking about. With Representative Paul Ryan touting his budget and its $6 trillion in cuts over the next ten years, and the Obama administration also floating a budget with billions in cuts… why is it that no one of any major national credibility is talking about trimming our outrageously out of control defense budget? Tea Party darling Sarah Palin, in her Washington Post op-ed piece, spoke about trimming the federal budget with regards to the President’s health care plan, Medicare, and Social Security. Yet, when confronted with the issue of national defense, she referred to it as “the one area where we shouldn’t be cutting corners.” With all due respect to the former governor of Alaska, I was never under the impression that at any point in time we as Americans have cut corners with our defense spending.
Despite what defense spending advocates would have you believe about the need to maintain or even increase the military budget, they fail to tell the whole story. Fear tactics are being used to make Americans believe that Iran is a growing and dangerous threat, or that China has passed us in military supremacy. These statements mislead the public in hopes that we will continue to endorse, if not demand, increases in spending. After all, to speak out against them would be “dangerous” or “unpatriotic.”
The facts of the matter are these: America spends almost $700 billion a year on defense. As of 2008, if you were to add up the amount spent by the next 14 countries behind us, we still would surpass them. We accounted for 46% of the WORLD’s defense spending in 2009. The entire world, mind you. We have over 700 military bases in over 40 foreign countries.
Iran has been called one of the greatest threats to national security in the present day. Conservatives have even used thinly-veiled references comparing it to a Hitler-led Germany of the 1930s. Yet they spend 1/110th the amount of money on their military as the Pentagon does. Fareed Zakaria said it best in his book, The Post-American World – “If this is 1938, as many conservatives argue, then Iran is Romania, not Germany.” So, why saber-rattle with regards to Iran? The answer is easy – fear will make Americans endorse more defense spending.
China spends 10% of the amount of money on defense as the Pentagon does. They have approximately 20 nuclear missiles that are capable of reaching our shores, while we maintain an arsenal with thousands of warheads capable of hitting anywhere on earth. In fact, China’s focus seems to be more on beating us economically. They have realized that perhaps the way to undermine our global power is to make themselves one of the most powerful economies on earth. How have we responded? By continuing to increase our military spending due to our old-fashioned worldview.
I have always believed that a president’s last address while in office is perhaps one of their most candid moments. There are no votes to earn; no opinion polls to worry about. It is their last chance to use the bully pulpit offered by the presidency. I find it fitting that none other than five-star general, Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, and Mr. Massive Retaliation himself – President Dwight D. Eisenhower – tried to warn us in his farewell address… why haven’t we listened?
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
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