And You Wonder Why We’re Broke?
Check out this International Institute for Strategic Studies infographic on military spending.
Context for the defense spending discussion currently going on.
From Ilya Gerner - worth noting.
We’re number one!
Graphic: Mapping a superpower-sized military
Despite the pending troop withdrawals in Iraq and those in Afghanistan between now and 2014, the United States remains a superpower on a scale not seen since the days of the Caesars. With this in mind, the National Post’s Richard Johnson takes a look at the scale of America’s forces.
(via ilovecharts)
US Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, counted among “green hawks” searching for fuel and energy efficiency solutions for the military. In August, President Obama announced that the Navy and the US Departments of Agriculture and Energy had agreed to provide a combined $510 million over three years to help jump-start private-sector production of advanced biofuels.
The Navy celebrates its 236th birthday today.
(via csmonitor)
(via csmonitor)
The Pentagon, which previously warned that reliable military spending figures could not be produced until 2017, has discovered that financial ledgers are in worse shape than expected and it may need to spend a billion dollars more to make DOD’s financial accounting credible, according to defense officials and congressional sources.
Experts say the Pentagon’s accounting has never been reliable. A lengthy effort by the military services to implement new financial systems at a cost so far of more than $6 billion has itself been plagued by overruns and delays, senior defense officials say. The Government Accountability Office said in a report last month that although the services can now fully track incoming appropriations, they still cannot demonstrate their funds are being spent as they should.
The issue of poor bookkeeping has taken on particular political salience as lawmakers more closely scrutinize the $671 billion annual military budget for waste, fraud and abuse amid soaring federal deficits. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, responding in part to bipartisan pressures, announced Tuesday that DOD does not intend to wait six more years — as agreed in 2009 — to put in place long-awaited accounting reforms that advocates say will increase efficiencies and reduce mismanagement. […]
But the new [2014] deadline will also increase expenditures, sources say. Above the $6 billion already committed, Pentagon officials say they were already budgeting $300 million a year for new accounting systems and other preparations for 2017, or a total of $1.5 billion in additional expenses. Several said that any acceleration in the deadlines would cause that spending to rise.
The debate is not an abstraction; senior defense officials and experts on Capitol Hill say that until the military’s books are fixed, the Pentagon — responsible for more than 43 percent of all discretionary spending— will remain unable to determine what its operations and weapons systems really cost; will be unaware of how many spare parts it has or needs and will be stymied in attempts to find savings from duplication and inefficiencies.
— Pentagon’s accounting shambles may cost an additional $1 billion (via pantslessprogressive)(via pantslessprogressive)
The F-35 is designed to be the core tactical fighter aircraft for the U.S. military, with three versions for the Air Force, Navy, and the Marine Corps. Each plane clocks in at around $90 million. In a decade’s time, the United States plans to have 15 times as many modern fighters as China, and 20 times as many as Russia.
So, how many F-35s do we need? 100? 500? Washington intends to buy 2,443, at a price tag of $382 billion. Add in the $650 billion that the Government Accountability Office estimates is needed to operate and maintain the aircraft, and the total cost reaches a staggering $1 trillion. In other words, we’re spending more on this plane than Australia’s entire GDP ($924 billion).
—The F-35: A Weapon That Costs More Than Australia - Dominic Tierney - National - The Atlantic (via markcoatney)
On one hand, holy crap and on the other hand, holy crap! Once Hillary is done in Washington can we hope she writes about all she has been through in attempts to shift spending elsewhere?
(via markcoatney)
The national-security state continues to grow in size, scope, and influence. In Ike’s day, for example, the CIA dominated the field of intelligence. Today, experts refer casually to an “intelligence community,” consisting of some 17 agencies. The cumulative size and payroll of this apparatus grew by leaps and bounds in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Last July, The Washington Post reported that it had “become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.” Since that report appeared, U.S. officials have parted the veil of secrecy enough to reveal that intelligence spending exceeds $80 billion per year, substantially more than the budget of either the Department of State ($49 billion) or the Department of Homeland Security ($43 billion).
The spending spree extends well beyond intelligence. The Pentagon’s budget has more than doubled in the past decade, to some $700 billion per year. All told, the ostensible imperatives of national security thereby consume roughly half of all federal discretionary dollars. Even more astonishing, annual U.S. military outlays now approximate those of all other nations, friends as well as foes, combined.
Sad is the United States tax payers are subsidizing and policing the extraction of resources not for the American people but for the corporations. When the American people benefit which does happen, the government has the opportunity to act as cheerleader.
Question still is what percentage of military spending is payroll? Would it be fair to ask our citizens to go serve and then all of sudden say, guess what, your opportunity is gone now? Instinct has it that our boys and girls might side with all of those other youngsters over seas with no opportunties. If we bring them all home with no plan of how to provide opportunities to be productive, there will be a serious mess likewise. One thing that can be done is re-arrange the pension system so that it tiered with only the truly dangerous posts having the most comprehensive benefits.
(via apoplecticskeptic)
