Time to talk turkey on US military spending

Here's the kind of statement that makes me crazy, from a CS Monitor article on the difficulty of finding budgetary offsets to pay for Gulf Coast reconstruction:

Overall, it would be next to impossible to offset $200 billion in Katrina costs in one year's budget, says Mr. Collender. Federal spending is $2.6 trillion a year - but take away Social Security and other entitlements, debt interest, defense spending, and supplemental war appropriations, and only about $500 billion remains. Finding $200 billion in savings would require almost a 50 percent cut in this remaining portion - which includes food safety programs, National Park Service salaries, and salaries for White House staff.

Did you catch it? Let me highlight it for you:

Overall, it would be next to impossible to offset $200 billion in Katrina costs in one year's budget, says Mr. Collender. Federal spending is $2.6 trillion a year - but take away Social Security and other entitlements, debt interest, defense spending, and supplemental war appropriations, and only about $500 billion remains. Finding $200 billion in savings would require almost a 50 percent cut in this remaining portion - which includes food safety programs, National Park Service salaries, and salaries for White House staff.

My point is, and the Monitor, whose work I genuinely admire, is far from alone in this, is that defense spending is assumed to be every bit as sacrosanct as Social Security and other entitlements, as well as our debt obligations. Why should this be so?

Currently the military budget constitutes far and away the largest portion of US discretionary spending. For 2005 it is projected to be $421 billion, not including Iraqi war supplementals which amount to ten of billions themselves. The next biggest portion of discretionary spending goes to education which, at a mere $60 billion, isn't really in the same ballpark, as the chart here illustrates.

Further, the US for some reason feels compelled to spend as much on its military as THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED!

Now I realize the world is a dangerous place, and that BushCorp™ policies have made it increasingly more so, especially for Americans. But really, do we Americans have to be spending, let me repeat it, as much on our military as THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED?

Perhaps so, perhaps not. I believe not, but I could well be wrong. What I'm not wrong about though, is my disgust with the total absence of debate about whether this degree of military spending is indeed appropriate.

And while I understand that politicians are afraid to appear weak by opposing defense spending, what excuse does the media have? In our quest to avoid the appearance of weakness must the American public also remain ignorant and stupid?

So, as the Gulf Coast rebuilding project runs up costs in the hundreds of billions of dollars, while millions of Americans live in poverty, and millions of others go without health insurance, can we at least consider rethinking our military spending? Can we at least talk about it?

[Note: Speaking of the esteem whith which I hold the CS Monitor, here's a nifty little article putting Iraq war spending in historical context. Apparently Iraqi war spending has now surpassed WWI, number 4 with a bullet! Next up Korea - CK]