Overseas operations are often misleadingly budgeted around 10-12% of the overall Pentagon spending annually. Officials, however, say that when operations and general maintenance are figured in, the cost grows to cover over half of the nation’s military spending, $251 billion as of 2015.
That percentage is a huge increase, and one which has steadily and precipitously grown for decades, though Pentagon officials insist no one is exactly sure why everything seems to cost way more than it did the previous year even though the number of troops and the number of wars relatively stable.
Some officials are trying to shrug it off as rising fuel costs or the like, and while fuel prices indeed rose many of those years, it was not the straight line increase like that the Pentagon is seeing on its costs of doing more or less everything they do.
The simpler answer, though one the Pentagon isn’t considering, is that operations and maintenance costs are rising dramatically simply because they can, because irrespective of supposed budget limitations, Congress always gives the Pentagon everything it asks for and then some.
Indeed, while figure in this study was separated from the large-scale weapons projects, those are largely doing the exact same thing, with most big US weapons projects coming in way, way over budget and delivering much less than expected, again, because contractors have no reason not to keep jacking up the prices every year.
It’s something that’s going to become a growing issue in the years to come, as with the costs of buying stuff, doing stuff, or maintaining the already bought stuff are pretty much the whole budget, and with all rising at a huge rate it’s getting less and less possible for the Pentagon to just shuffle the figures around and make it look like they’re not badly mishandling their budget.
One word: corruption. Typical third-world country-style theft of taxpayer money but in the scale of trillions. And since no one dares ask the Pentagon to come up with a budget and stick to it, let alone demand accountability, the Pentagon crooks know full well that they’re immune. Impunity is the name of the game.
The USG pretends to care about corruption with these FIFA and Odebrecht revelations and prosecutions, but it’s just misdirection. The real scandal underneath and untouched is the corruption by the military industrial complex.
Imagine how much money the Pentagon has weaseled out of the Taxpayers with just a few lies ? Trillions and trillions have been stolen since I was a kid watching JFKs funeral and the establishment blaming a CIA agent who was sent to -Russia- in order to be their patsy. Russia should sue for royalty money from the US corporation Pentagon since it uses their name in order to make trillions. Michael Jordan doesn’t let Nike use his name for – Nothin.
Just a few lies like global warming became climate change when they were forced to use the real temp records . Imagine how much they could collect because the air changes from cold to warm and than back to cold . Global cooling is a real danger . So the government is forced to take your money and save us . Of course this can be so much better accomplished if we only had a world government . You can bet this is the story in the weekly reader . Already a lot of people are ready to take your money and save the envirement Many people believe really we better do some thing before it is to late . Do you believe them ? I don’t .
Can we trust that you’re a climate scientist who knows what he’s talking about eric?
If not then I prefer to believe over 90% of the scientists who are saying you are wrong. I know of no reason why they would want to lie to us eric. Do you, and if so then what is their agenda.
The agenda of the climate change/global warming deniers seems to be linked very closely to their interests in fossil fuels. In nearly all cases the link can be found.
Trump promised to increase the military budget and I don’t blame him for this – he can’t afford to make enemy of everyone. He should sort it out with CIA first before they organised a regime change in Washington. His anti-Chinese rhetoric also makes sense – he needs to deteriorate the relationship with China to the point where it would be possible to force the American investors in China to move their business back to America. Also something should be done about the huge deficit in American- Chinese trade.
There’s little doubt that Americans would switch to buying American even if the cost of articles needed to escalate perhaps 100% due to increased labour cost in manufacturing.
So for example, the big screen t.v.’s that are a necessity of life would come to cost say a couple of thousand dollars instead of about 500 dollars.
The Sam Sung brand and the LG brand, leaders in the market, would be passed over for the General Electric made by Americans. Or what ever brands?
And the Chevford will be chosen instead of the cheaply made Japanese made Toyota, even though the price tag on the Fordchev will be doubled!
When you buy anything made in US, you know you support your own industry and the living standards of your country. The only problem is – the investors the capitalist sharks they make more money by dumping here the goods made in Asia. Result is that the living standards deteriorate – lower quality goods and often you have no choice at all, can’t buy even a simple kettle made here. It is bad for everyone: local business and consumers.
Americans can’t make a kettle that’s priced even close to competitive for the majority of the people. Most Americans don’t understand the goods they buy and depend upon are made in overseas sweatshops. And if you take the label off they wouldn’t know a made in America article. The only difference is the price.
It’s over Mikhail and that should tell you that Trump was only talking to the stupid people who can’t get it throught their heads that their labour is only worth about the same as a Mexican’s labour. Like about 5 bucks an hour and Americans don’t talk back to the boss who wants to work them split shifts.
In early 1960th, when it became clear to western elites that their attempts to dominate the World are failing, they started to invest in their own people living standards in order not to lose everything. After collapse of USSR, the welfare state became a nuisance and attempt for “full spectrum domination” was made again and now failing again. While the gap between living standards of American and Chinese is reducing fast, the gap between rich and poor in West is fast growing. In the free trade world West can’t compete with China until their living standards would be the same, or else the efficiency of the industry of West would be much higher.
Our two posts could be the beginning of a good discussion. I rather liked the way you described the welfare state as becoming a nuisance.
The ‘welfare state’ so to speak is a necessity in a socially responsible capitalist system but the US capitalist system just refused to understand that. And consequently, it’s likely that made matters worse than if they did. Now the suffering of the poor and the middle class has resulted in a society full of crime and that’s going to be very difficult to rise above. And a factor that has made even worse that rise is the American general attitude of treating black people as less than the white.
There is much to be said about the current situation but I’m afraid this board is not the place to say it. I’ll just add that you are right saying the gap between China standard of living and America’s is narrowing, but I don’t think more equality between the wealthy Americans and the poor will fix the problem. Even though that will have to be the first measures taken.
This is why The Trump promise, the great white hope, is the exact opposite of that which the poor and middle class elected him. A very wealthy businessman whose last thought would be to improve the failing welfare state.
The guy who called himself a socialist was the obvious answer. Only, Bernie isn’t a socialist at all but only a capitalist who understands social responsibility toward his people.
The Prussian system of arms production and government purchase was simple. Herr Krupp orders his engineers to develop a new cannon. He does not get any financial support from the Prussian government for that development and the testing. He gets no orders whatsoever from that government for the cannon until the cannon is proven and even then the order could be zero. In fact that happened once which forced Krupp to peddle his new (and very good) cannon abroad. Irony: he failed to sell in Czarist Russia.
Here is one explanation for our Pentagon overruns. Prussia had a capitalist system of arms production and purchase. Our system is Leninist. It is absolutely weird that companies which participate in a Leninist mode of production and sale also borrow funds from the public on the capitalist stock markets.
Of course the Prussian system risked that German ships and soldiers might get hit by Krupp’s cannon. It happened at least twice. Once in China during the Boxer Rebellion and in 1940 when Hitler’s war ships steamed up the Oslo fjord. Both the Kaiser and Hitler were furious at the Krupp’s of the time but did nothing.
” were furious at the Krupp’s of the time”
the krupp’s of the time were krupp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dr%C3%B8bak_Sound
Yes but they also knew that one big misstep would mean concentration camp at least.
That is natural when a country love peace,is always “good”(and consistently Great!).That is “exceptionalismstan”!
If I was in charge I would audit *ALL* of the personal accounts of every General and every subordinate first and foremost. This would be proper in real world terms!
April 08, 2016 U.S. Government Accounting Is Fraudulent
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is the non-partisan auditor and investigator for Congress. The GAO says that the U.S. government’s records are so poorly kept that it can’t really audit them. Moreover, the Pentagon hasn’t even attempted to comply with government audits … and “$8.5 trillion in taxpayer money doled out by Congress to the Pentagon [between] 1996 [and 2013] has never been accounted for.” The military wastes and “loses” trillions of dollars.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-government-accounting-is-fraudulent/5519261
August 16, 2016 Pentagon Cannot Account For $6.5 Trillion Dollars
A new Department of Defense Inspector General’s report, released last week, has left Americans stunned at the jaw-dropping lack of accountability and oversight. The glaring report revealed the Pentagon couldn’t account for $6.5 trillion dollars worth of Army general fund transactions and data, according to a report by the Fiscal Times.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/pentagon-cannot-account-for-6-5-trillion-dollars/5541244
I read that it costs $1,000,000 a year to “station” a soldier overseas and $2,000,000 if they are in Afghanistan. What the hell are we wasting this much money for? Just to provoke WW3 and protect the opium poppy fields for the CIA’s global heroin network? While I am a libertarian and think every penny should remain in the pockets of those who earned it, I can certainly think of thousands of better ways to spend that money right here in this country. And so-called “conservatives” don’t question this waste one bit.
Back 50 years ago, during the Viet Nam War, members of the military were all sh-tbirds, paid like sh-tbirds, and treated like sh-tbirds. Today, members of the military are all heroes; and they must be paid like heroes and treated like heroes. This difference costs a lot. It is the difference of things like having GIs cleaning their own bathrooms, cooking their own food, and washing their own clothes or hiring civilians to do it for them. Sh-tbirds do latrine duty – heroes don’t. The bottom line is that we can afford an army of sh-tbirds; we can’t afford an army of heroes. If we want only heroes, we will have to settle for a couple of divisions or regiments, not armies.
Treating GIs like sh-tbirds was Eisenhower’s view. He was quoted as saying, “pay them just enough to get haircuts and shoe polish”. A distinct advantage of treating GIs like sh-tbirds is that they have no interest in becoming career sh-tbirds. They get out as soon as they can and become dedicated non-militants and useful civilians for the rest of their lives. Sh-tbirds won WWII; the proud professional Army has recent record of losing.