The most recent figures related to President Trump’s proposed increases in Pentagon spending, along with cuts at the State Department, show the general national security budget of the United States rising once again, with the 2018 proposal in the ballpark of $1.1 trillion.
Needless to say, that’s the biggest military budget on the planet by a far measure. As the figures are broken down into their component parts, however, it becomes particularly shocking just how money is disappearing not just into the general war-fighting budget, but into related costs of having such a massive military for so long.
For interest, Veterans Affairs is expected to eat up $183.5 billion, which by itself comes very close to being the second largest military budget on the planet, just behind China’s $200 billion overall cost for its vast military. Figuring in other retirement costs, the cost of retirees is even bigger.
This $1.1 trillion also includes over $112 billion that just represents the interest on the military’s share of America’s massive national debt. This interest alone would be more than the cost of NATO’s next two largest member nations’ militaries, Britain and France.
Even cuts in international affairs don’t really put a debt into how much the cost of everything else is rising, and with plans for a massive modernization scheme related to America’s massive nuclear weapons arsenal, the $21.8 billion nuclear weapons expenses for 2018 could easily explode manyfold, with the expectation that they’ll dump well over $1 trillion just in the modernization scheme over the years to come.
The costs of retirees and debt are likewise things that could rapidly grow out of control, as increases in the amount being spent on fighting in the present inevitably leads to even more retirees and an even vaster debt to service.
$1.1 Trillion. If I read that right that is roughly $3,500 per US resident. Now I know why I haven’t been able to take a vacation in years, and can barely afford food and medicine. Boy could I use an extra $3,500 per year.
…and most of it is BORROWED.
Post 1971 the U.S. does not borrow to spend.
And stolen at the end of a gun barrel by THE IRS! An illegal, for profit collection corporation for the Federal Reserve another for profit privately owned corporation which is owned by the IMF which is… ditto the former 2 organized crime organizations!
National Security is safe. Nobody will dare attack the exceptional country.
The rich greedy up its own arse country, stay real.
they’ll dump well over $1 trillion just in the modernization ‘scheme’…
‘Scheme’ is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Because the corrupt
Pentagon ‘Lacks Any Post-Transfer Accountability’, most of this cash
will be skimmed, swindled, embezzled, and pissed away by the crooks
and thieves in the MIC and the Pentagon itself.
In Rome when the military spending reached about a quarter of total national budget a major crisis ensued.This military budget is insane.It has nothing to do with protection and everything to do with greed and a broken system.
Calling it “national security” is an infuriatingly bad joke.
The punch line is “hey, the nation is secure. Pity about the majority of the inhabitants.”
The only thing that can change this trajectory is some outside force outside the control of even the deep state. An economic collapse or a series of major foreign policy disasters.
Just keep the fiat money printing presses rolling. It can only get a lot worse,
Nah. We’d have to be at full employment for things to get worse. We’re no where near that with U6 UE at 9%.
Because the U.S. is monetarily sovereign (MS) it can never, involuntarily, become bankrupt. As Greenspan told Ryan, ” … a nation sovereign in its own currency can afford anything denominated in that currency.”
Moreover, because we are MS we never borrow to fund federal expenditures. The Federal Reserve simply uses its computers to mark up checking accounts to pay our federal bills. It doesn’t make sense for us to borrow when all that’s needed is an appropriation to trigger the Fed’s computers and complete the act of spending.
The $20 trillion or so claimed as debt is in fact nothing more than Treasury securities held in accounts at the Federal Reserve. In no rational way can these accounts be considered debt. In fact they are savings for the many entities who swap non-interest bearing dollars for interest bearing T-securities as a safe haven.
Nor do the dollars come from tax revenue. All Federal tax revenue is destroyed and never recycled. Why would it be when the Fed can and does simply issue new dollars. https://goo.gl/FJjDq0