Ten Year Outlook - Obama Would Spend $6 Trillion On Military, Romney $8 Trillion
Since we're flush with cash, and with federal government surpluses as far as the eye can see, it makes stellar budgetary sense that we spend $6-8 trillion over the next ten years on the U.S. Industrial Killing Machine.
Wait, what?
Back to deficit reality. We borrow 42 cents of every federal dollar. Neither Obama nor Romney are inclined to look for savings from the military. Doyle McManus of the LA Times takes a look at Romney's plan to increase war spending by perhaps as much as 50% over current levels.
President Obama has proposed keeping the Pentagon budget essentially flat for the next 10 years. Mitt Romney, by contrast, wants to increase defense spending massively — by more than 50% over current levels, according to one estimate. That could mean almost $2 trillion in additional military spending over 10 years.
Romney hasn't actually proposed a defense budget or offered any specific numbers for his military strategy. But he says he wants core defense spending to reach at least 4% of the nation's gross domestic product — a big increase over the current level of about 3.2%. And he says the country needs about 100,000 more active-duty military personnel than the current 1.4 million, even though U.S. forces have left Iraq and have begun to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Romney's argument is that only increased U.S. militarypower can guarantee peace in the world. "A strong America is the best deterrent to war that has ever been invented," he told veterans in San Diego last month. He said his goal was "to preserve America as the strongest military in the world, second to none, with no comparable power anywhere in the world.''
Of course, the United States already fields the strongest military in the world; U.S. core defense spending — that is, the amount we spend on our military excluding the cost of major wars — is already greater than that of the next 10 countries combined. The real questions are: How much is enough? How much can we afford? And in a time of shrinking federal budgets, how would we pay for it?
---
Featured comment from Howard T. Lewis III:
It is never advisable to vote for a candidate who gets more than happy and excited when he considers desperate sweaty soldiers. It is insane to vote for someone who gets so worked up about dead ones. Mittens Romney The Liquidator comes off like the guy on the underwear package down at K-Mart, with as much awareness of the world. Obama invariably comes off like the guy who fluffed him for the picture. Obama is currently waging war in and murdering innocent civilians in a dozen different countries, with more countries to find murder victims in his sights. Romney is even more messed up about killing. He follows the guidelines of psychopathology in government to the letter.
PHOTO - Which one is not like the others..?..
Aug 3, 2012 at 1:41 PM
Reader Comments (7)
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4247178,00.html
So, given the diversion of more than 2.3 trillion under the watchful eye of the good rabbi, one would think that Zakheim will again plays his games, but based upon the estimated expenditures, give President Romney and the American people a slight discount.
Such a deal!