Originally posted by: Genx87
Originally posted by: eskimospy
Originally posted by: Genx87
Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
Originally posted by: Genx87
The military budget is within the % of most countries. The fact our economy is so much bigger than any other single country is the reason why it looks so large.
That would be a
lie.
We run a military budget of 600 billion in an economy of 14 billion.
About 4.2% of our gdp goes to the military. Most western nations fall in the 2-4% range. We are in a time of war. Without a war our military expenditures would be less. Before the war we were sitting at about 3% of GDP.
Our military expenditures would not be less. That figure you just gave is the budget figure that completely ignores the development, upkeep, and maintainence of our nuclear weapons, veterans medical costs from the wars, supplementals for the 'global war on terror', etc... etc. With all those added in we are easily over $800 billion, probably well over $1 trillion.
A quick glance showed about 8 billion a year on upkeep of nuclear weapons
32 billion for veterens. Which is a seperate dept.
The budget I am looking at for FY2009 includes 70 billion allocation for the global wot. You may be right in that if you include all emergency funding they are sitting at close to 800 billion.
But that is during a time of war. We leave Iraq and Afghanistan and we about 600-650 billion a year which isnt an outrageous number as a % of GDP. Especially when you compare it to decades past since WWII. In the 50's we had a military that consumed 10-14% of our GDP.