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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (482481)	5/21/2009 1:44:12 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573994

The key relevant point in your quote is "It went up as high as 37.8% during the war." When it was at 37.8% our military spending was far beyond that of any other country in the world. That means in 2003 military spending is 50% of US discretionary spending. And in 1944 it was over 85% of ALL government spending. In 1955 it was about 64% of all government spending. Fifteen years later 1970 it was about 48% of all government spending. Move forward another 15 years (1985) and it was over 31%, another 15 years to 2000 and it was 20%, for 2009 it was up a bit to around around 20.5%. (Spending figures are from usgovernmentspending.com Note I'm being generous to your side of the argument with these figures. They are NOT the official defense budget, or even the budget + the war supplementals. It also includes the DoE nuclear weapons program, VA spending, civil defense spending, foreign aid (and not just military aid, also economic aid). Some of those should count (clearly the DoE nuclear weapons program, maybe VA spending, but foreign aid should not. If you include just DoD spending its not aprox. 20.5% its a bit over 17%. WAY TOO MUCH! And it supports my original premise: No it doesn't because your data and arguments for the "way too much" range from questionable to false, and because your actual original premise was that we have moved to the right. Not "we spend to much on the military".

To: tejek who wrote (482481)	5/21/2009 2:21:39 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573994

"That means in 2003 military spending is 50% of US discretionary spending." I've been harping on this forever. The only pol to point this out and attempt to make it a political issue has been Ralph Nader, a guy who could take it nowhere, and by putting it out there actually made it seem wacky. This is the true third rail of American politics, so radioactive and subject to the untrue "unAmerican" and "weak on defense" attacks from the military-government-industrial complex that EVERY pol knows it's totally radioactive and never to be mentioned.