From: Ad 

Randy wrote:
> Mark wrote:
>> Well, hell Randy, I don't really don't give a shit if a fence won't
>> work, the border still has to be secured.
>>
>> I guess what we need then, is the National Guard on the border with
>> lots of rounds of live ammunition until the illegal trespassers figure
>> out that we're serious about stopping them. > surrender in Iraq and bring them on home>
>>
> Exactly. Rotary cannons would work wonders.
>
> Now pay for it.
>


http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=20607

"Even without the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are
fast surpassing half a trillion dollars, US military spending is now the
largest item in the federal budget. Officially, it is the second highest
item after Social Security payments. But Social Security is a
self-financing trust fund. So, in reality, military spending is the highest
budget item.

The Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year (2007) is about $456
billion. President Bush’s proposed increase of 10% for next year will raise
this figure to over half a trillion dollars, that is, $501.6 billion for
fiscal year 2008. A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq “brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to
$647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of
World War II—higher than Vietnam, higher than Korea, higher than the peak
of the Reagan buildup.”[1]

Using official budget figures, William D. Hartung, Senior Fellow at the
World Policy Institute in New York, provides a number of helpful
comparisons:

Proposed US military spending for FY 2008 is larger than military spending
by all of the other nations in the world combined.

At $141.7 billion, this year's proposed spending on the Iraq war is larger
than the military budgets of China and Russia combined. Total US military
spending for FY2008 is roughly ten times the military budget of the second
largest military spending country in the world, China.

Proposed US military spending is larger than the combined gross domestic
products (GDP) of all 47 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The FY 2008 military budget proposal is more than 30 times higher than all
spending on State Department operations and non-military foreign aid
combined.

The FY 2008 military budget is over 120 times higher than the roughly $5
billion per year the US government spends on combating global warming.

The FY 2008 military spending represents 58 cents out of every dollar spent
by the US government on discretionary programs: education, health, housing
assistance, international affairs, natural resources and environment,
justice, veterans’ benefits, science and space, transportation,
training/employment and social services, economic development, and several
more items.[2]

Although the official military budget already eats up the lion’s share of
the public money (crowding out vital domestic needs), it nonetheless
grossly understates the true magnitude of military spending. The real
national defense budget, according to Robert Higgs of the Independent
Institute, is nearly twice as much as the official budget. The reason for
this understatement is that the official Department of Defense budget
excludes not only the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also a
number of other major cost items.[3]

These disguised cost items include budgets for the Coast Guard and the
Department of Homeland Security; nuclear weapons research and development,
testing, and storage (placed in the Energy budget); veterans programs (in
the Veteran’s Administration budget); most military retiree payments (in
the Treasury budget); foreign military aid in the form of weapons grants
for allies (in the State Department budget); interest payments on money
borrowed to fund military programs in past years (in the Treasury budget);
sales and property taxes at military bases (in local government budgets);
and the hidden expenses of tax-free food, housing, and combat pay
allowances.

After adding these camouflaged and misplaced expenses to the official
Department of Defense budget, Higgs concludes: “I propose that in
considering future defense budgetary costs, a well-founded rule of thumb is
to take the Pentagon's (always well publicized) basic budget total and
double it. You may overstate the truth, but if so, you'll not do so by
much.”[4] "


Adam

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5