Obscenity

Posted on April 2, 2008 by Bill Wolfe

The Supreme Court knows it when it sees it – well, this is obscene folks.
Where’s the public outcry here about Government waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars?
A Submarine to Fight al-Qaida’s Navy
[…]
“This is not about the waste of taxpayer dollars–already pushing a trillion–in funding the Iraq war, which, while reprehensible enough, pales in comparison to the big-ticket military systems purchased in the wake of 9/11. In the horror of that moment, the floodgates were lifted and the peace dividend promised with the end of the Cold War was washed away by a doubling of spending on ultra-complex military equipment originally designed to defeat a Soviet enemy that no longer exists, equipment that has no plausible connection with fighting stateless terrorists. Example: the $81-billion submarine pushed by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, presumably to fight al-Qaida’s navy.
That’s the huge scandal the media and politicians from both parties have studiously avoided. But as the GAO’s authoritative audit details, the costs are astronomical. The explosion of spending on expensive weaponry after 9/11 had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks of that day. The high-tech planes and ships commissioned for trillions of dollars to defeat an enemy with no navy, air force or army, and using $3 knives as its weapons arsenal, were gifts to the military-industrial complex that will go on giving for decades to come.”
Link to complete column: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080401_a_submarine_to_fight_al_qaidas_navy/

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7 Responses to Obscenity

  1. ThomasReid says:
    April 2, 2008 at 12:50 PM

    Bill,
    Clearly, governments – federal, state and local – are not the most cost conscience or efficient entities. However, total defense spending as a percent of GDP is currently 4.0 percent. Since 1940, total defense spending as a percent of GDP has been less than 4 percent in only 8 out of those 68 years: 3.7 percent in 1995; 3.5 percent in 1996; 3.4 percent in 2002; 3.3 percent in 1997; 3.1 percent in 1998; and 3.0 percent in 1999, 2000 and 2001.
    By way of comparison, the federal government currently spends a record high 13.0 percent of GDP for education, health and income security programs. In terms of percent of the federal budget, those programs comprise a total of 64.4 percent of federal spending as compared to a total of 20.2 percent for national defense.
    What percentages of GDP and the federal budget should we be spending for national defense?

  2. nohesitation says:
    April 2, 2008 at 1:21 PM

    ThomaReid – you play very dishonest games with the numbers
    Your source is the White House accounting scheme (first google hit) http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/pdf/hist.pdf
    But that combines apples and oranges to minimize degree of defense spending – comparison to % GDP also masks the larger point: our national defense needs have gone DOWN since the height of the Cold War (and economy has grown significantly since WWII). Even f you buy your argument, the purposes for all that defense spending fail to match the threat
    I don’t have the time to debate teh obvious wioth soemone who plays such games (e.g. distinguish discretionary spening and fail to note trust fudns like SS)’
    See CBO for less biased accounting methods: http://www.cbo.gov/

  3. jessea says:
    April 2, 2008 at 3:19 PM

    Googled “PEAK OIL” and chose the “Life After The Oil Crash” LAOC website. Awesome, what a wealth of good information. Should be required reading. Thanks for the recommendation.

  4. overtaxed15 says:
    April 2, 2008 at 3:28 PM

    Is Al Qaida the only threat we face in the new millennium?
    How about North Korea or Iran? They have navies, including subs.
    China likes to flex its muscles; should we just let them, without deploying any deterrent capabilities of our own?
    Who knows what kind of conflict might arise due to Hugo Chavez playing games with the Columbians. It might be nice to have some naval forces available in the event we need to support our allies in South America.
    Unfortunately, plenty of potential “conventional” enemies still exist.

  5. ThomasReid says:
    April 2, 2008 at 3:59 PM

    Facts are facts, Bill and I’m not playing a dishonest game with numbers.
    I got the figures from the historical tables found on the GPO’s website. http://www.gpoaccess.gov. The U.S Treasury Department has been comparing apples to apples using same “accounting scheme” as you called it for 68 years. Here’s the same set of tables, for example, prepared for FY 2000 that includes the numbers going back to 1940. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy00/pdf/hist.pdf and for FY 2008 http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/pdf/hist.pdf with the numbers going back to 1940. The accounting methods and historical numbers don’t change depending upon who is in the Whitehouse.
    I probably shouldn’t waste my time with your posts, but I thought the facts might help readers who are interested in a serious and honest discussion on this topic. I realize that’s not your intention.

  6. nohesitation says:
    April 2, 2008 at 4:45 PM

    ThomasReid – anyone that wants a serious and honest discussion is certainly not fooled by your presentation of the “data” or lightweight “arguments”.
    The US spend more on military than the rest of the world COMBINED.
    US has military bases in over 100 countries. That’s an EMPIRE folks, not a republic.
    This is a blog – but If folks want academic quality book length treatment of these issues, my best recommendation is the trilogy by Chalmers Johnson:
    “The Sorrows of Empire”
    “Blowback::
    Nemesis”

  7. overtaxed15 says:
    April 2, 2008 at 7:02 PM

    “The US spend more on military than the rest of the world COMBINED”
    This is indeed a sad state of affairs, but one precipitated by the failure of our allies to step up to the plate. Europe has spent the past 50 years disarming, and spending their defense dollars on bloated social programs. Uncle Sam has been their protector, first from the Soviets, and now from the Islamists. Only the UK has a reasonable military force, but ever since Tony Blair bungled his domestic agenda and thus was voted out of office they’ve been slowing cutting back.
    It’s high time for the continental Europeans to stand up for themselves. But, as their pitiful response to the tsunami in Indonesia proved, they can’t keep even on old French aircraft carrier afloat. One advantage of bringing countries like Poland into NATO is that they’ve got a decent army, and they’re not afraid to deploy it.
    South Korea is another freeloader that ought to start fending for themselves; why we’re keeping 30,000 troops in a constant state of readiness on the DMZ is beyond me.
    But, there are advantages to being a global superpower. We are the guarantor of peaceful commerce (think USN presence in the Persian Gulf). A carrier battle group is a wonderfully useful tool for keeping semi-sane autocrats from provoking a war they can’t possibly win.
    “US has military bases in over 100 countries. That’s an EMPIRE folks, not a republic.”
    BZZZT! If we’re an empire, we’re the lousiest empire in the history of the world. We don’t subjugate any other countries (and no, you can’t say we’re subjugating Iraq because our long-term goal there is to turn control of the country over to their legitimately elected officials, something that we are already doing). We don’t take things from places where we have bases at the point of a gun. If we did, we wouldn’t be paying $3 / gallon for gasoline. We don’t use the threat of violent action to coerce our allies into voting our way in the UN. In fact, no sane “empire” would tolerate something like the UN!
    No, we are the guys everybody loves to hate, until they need us. We’re like the rich indulgent uncle; our nieces and nephews pooh-pooh our advice, they scoff at our old-world fuddy duddy ways, but when they’re broke and need money for car repairs we’re the first guy they call and we always say “yes”, and we never say “I told you so”.
    Quite frankly, that’s OK by me; we’re Americans, and darn proud of it.

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