PRODIGAL MILITARY BUDGET RETURNS HOME

Social Security has a vast cash flow, both intake and outflow, of around $700 billion per year. For this reason, since S.S. pays for itself in taxes (this year might be the first negative outflow; still, S.S. has $2.5 trillion in reserves), it seems logical to me to take it out of the mix for cutting the federal budget. (I do not mean it does not need some adjustment--it does; but, the required adjustments will be relatively minor.)

According to this calculation (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States>), the 2010 U.S. military budget is $1.01-1.35 trillion. This is far above the combined expenditures of Medicare and Medicaid, at $743 billion.

In my view, much of the "defense" budget is misspent on the military and adds little to our national "security." A broader, more rational view of security must include the health of the nation's infrastructure, education, personal health (both physical and mental), and the environment, and research for life improvement. As I see it, funds spent on clean energy and these other areas is wealth invested in our national security.

When the energy crunch hits hard, the national psyche will weep for the trillions that could have been invested in the future well-being of the nation. There will be lamentations over the (budgetary) memory of the prodigal soldier-son, who, in the scenario I'm imagining, will have only an impoverished home to return to.

MILITARY BUDGET

No one is suggesting cuts in defense spending that would lessen our security (see the next entry below). But, much of military spending is useless, if our enemies are North Korea (with a $5 billion defense budget) or Iran ($4.8 billion), and to conduct asymmetrical warfare in various places, and even to maintain an adequate defense posture vis-a-vis China. The ultimate assessment of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, most likely, it seems to me, is that they are mostly pointless (as was the Vietnam War). If the type of military we have is to fight those kinds of pointless wars, then we would not need whole defense hardware systems that we have.

Interesting about the recent Chavez military purchases from Russia: those are big dollars ($5 billion, $2.2 billion lent by Russia) which yet another government could use for more productive--human--purposes. The quality of Russian military hardware has been suspect for some time (see this article in "NY Times": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/business/global/13ruble.html?pagewanted=1). Seems Russia, itself, is buying from overseas. It would be difficult, too, for Venezuela to do training and maintenance on its purchases. Still, the loose cannon in Venezuela must be watched. It might be a fitting place for our next pointess war!

The claim that military spending amounts to 53% of the federal budget (see next entry below) does not include the funds collected for Social Security, which is about 42% of federal funds collected. The argument to not include SS collections is that, since the Vietnam War, the Social Security Trust Fund was included in the budget as a way to dilute the percentage of military spending in the budget--to make it appear smaller to the American public. Also, the usual compilation of numbers would not include $400 billion for interest payments on debt due to previous military spending, nor the $100 billion on veterans' benefits and health care, nor the $94 billion in non-DOD military spending. Yet, these are all military costs for which we pay and they total to $1.6 trillion next fiscal year, according to this accounting. The Vietnam War still costs real money today, as is evident with the Vietnam vet several doors down who is in and out of rehab. In any case, the 2011 military budget is, according to my source, the largest in US history, in both actual and inflation-adjusted dollars. Not sure if it is the largest in percentage of the total budget. Probably not.

But, the point is the ginormous defense spending itself. Particularly with looming, massive budget deficits coming around in the mid-term future, we will, as a society be forced to decide what to cut. Without rather drastic cuts in defense spending (at least 25% according to some in Congress), there is no way to make it work.

STUDENTS OR HELICOPTERS?

Next time you hear of funds running out for student loans, or for supplemental unemployment payments, or for retaining teachers; the next time you hear that the government needs to cut Social Security benefits, or Medicare benefits, or raise the SS retirement age to 70--think of the 53.3% of the federal budget that goes to financing the most enormous war machine the world has ever seen.

This gargantuan figure, which works out to $1.6 trillion out of an estimated $3 trillion budget (for fiscal year 2011), includes interest payments for prior wars and standing army, veterans benefits and health care, non-DOD military spending, "black box" intelligence agency funding, supplemental funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the $708 billion Pentagon budget request.

In the next budget and future ones, is this where you want your money to go? The opportunity costs of spending vast amounts of money on unneeded military expenditures, more than 10 times the amount of the next highest spender (China at $130 billion) is a wicked enormity, a barbarity of our time and doing. The money which will be spent next year on replacing helicopters ($4.8 billion) would go a long way to fully fund student loans.

Which is it going to be: fund students or buy helicopters employed in dubious use in again killing nearly 600 Afghan civilians?