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With everyone concerned about the deficit and spending it seems odd to me that no one has blinked an eye at our extraordinary military spending. The spending I’m speaking of does not include the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan or keeping our shores safe, what I’m referring to is the billions of dollars given away each year to other nations to subsidize their military spending. That’s right, for the last 65 years we have helped subsidize the military establishment in other countries while they have bragged about their wide-ranging social programs and quality of life - a quality of life the American taxpayer has been footing the bill for.
The following is a paragraph taking from a story written by Rep. Barney Frank and Ron Paul:
Immediately after World War II, with much of the world devastated and the Soviet Union becoming increasingly aggressive, America took on the responsibility of protecting virtually every country that asked for it. Sixty-five years later, we continue to play that role long after there is any justification for it, and currently American military spending makes up approximately 44% of all such expenditures worldwide. The nations of Western Europe now collectively have greater resources at their command than we do, yet they continue to depend overwhelmingly on American taxpayers to provide for their defense. According to a recent article in the New York Times, "Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism. Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella."
Discretionary military spending for 2010 exceeds $666 billion dollars, while at the same time budget estimates show spending on education at about $46 billion, labor $14 billion, transportation $21 billion and human services stands at $84 billion. US military spending far exceeds all other budgetary spending estimates.
Many people in this country have foolishly made spending on Medicare and unemployment insurance an issue because they worry about the deficit; those two social programs are pocket change compared to the money our military establishment is wasting. Nevertheless, the argument concerning, what some people call “give-aways,” is being shoved done our throats by a news media and a political body who want us to look the other way. (Round up the usual suspects.)
Instead of concerning ourselves about giving a couple hundred dollars a week to an unemployed American worker, we should be questioning the billions of dollars given to other countries so their citizens can live a better quality of life than Americans do. In fact, we should be mad as hell about this, yet it is easier to look at the "usual suspects" and not dig into the dirt too deeply.
American taxpayers who are so concerned about the henhouse being raided should look elsewhere, it’s not the “lazy” unemployed who refuse to look for work that is sapping our economy, it’s the hawks circling overhead.
