Don’t ask, don’t tell (especially about $726B for defense)

Jason P

I don’t really care about the debate on gays in the military, but this is the reason we kill a defense budget??? Good god, we need to attach this to every defense budget from here on out!

But I do find it distressing that these massive budgets are passed with hardly a glance yet a hot-button issue unrelated to funding is the only thing that is debated. Our military budget is outrageous in comparison to the rest of the world. Yes, we are in a war but we still have troops stationed in over 100 countries and we account for 40% of the world’s annual military expenditures.

The bank and auto bailouts have a combined cost of around $170B (note: I did 3 minutes of research on the cost of bailouts, so please, no crucifying ). Even if those estimates are off and the cost of the bailouts is actually double that ($338B), that still is only 46.5% of the annual defense budget. Yet not a peep by anyone. :shh:

Auto Bailouts - $82B (Wash Post, Sept 2010) http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/09/steve_rattners_auto_world.html
Bank Bailouts - $87B (CBS news; April 2010)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/23/politics/main6426114.shtml

I don’t really blame the general populace for not complaining about this issues because my eyes have just recently opened up to the ridiculous amount of money that we spend. Perhaps it is time for change.

polaris_x

here here ... i would say that many of those on the left have been griping about this for a long time ... and it also helps people understand why wars in iraq and afghanistan have nothing to do with freedom ...

BinauralJam

Killing brown people is expensive, there's no way around that.

TriumphantAngel

Jason P wrote:

I don’t really blame the general populace for not complaining about this issues because my eyes have just recently opened up to the ridiculous amount of money that we spend. Perhaps it is time for change.

i see/hear quite often people complaining about the amount of money spent on funding wars and occupation. it's no good just talking about it, you have to be proactive in ways that count. at the very least, people should be contacting their representatives to tell them how they feel.

problem is, too many people will show outrage over something like obamas birth certificate (sigh), rather than worrying about billions spent on war while the Countries infastructure falls apart, while 52 million don't have Health cover, while the number of people living in povery has increased by 4 million. yep. 4 million, and while the unemployment rate is at it's highest for quite some time. those billions wasted on war could come in pretty handy right about now don't you think.

too much talk, not enough action on the things that really matter.

unsung

I remember many here complaining about the bill that made it legal to carry guns in National Parks, because it was lumped into credit card reform, IIRC.

This is the same thing, this and the DREAM Act were lumped onto this defense spending bill. If these issues merit action then they should be voted on based on what they offer, not under the guise of military spending.

You can't have it both ways.