Explaining his “no” vote on the National Defense Authorization Act, Sen. Bernie Sanders expressed serious concern over the “bloated military budget.” Even considering the source, his concerns are valid, I think.
We have a nearly 40% share of the world’s defense budget, spending more by ourselves than the major national powers of the world combined. That’s crazy. And according to Sen. Sanders, the Government Accountability Office can’t even audit defense spending due to extraordinary financial mismanagement. His words:
The situation is so absurd that the Pentagon is unable to even account for how it spends its money. Earlier this year the Government Accountability Office cited its inability—that is, the GAO’s ability—to audit the Pentagon. They wrote that they were unable to do a comprehensive financial analysis due to “serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense that made its financial statements unauditable.” That is from the Government Accountability Office. So we are voting for a budget that the GAO says they cannot even audit—for the most expensive agency in government.
I don’t often agree with Bernie Sanders. But on this, I completely agree. The amount the taxpayer spends on the military is absurd. Sanders quotes the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, which outlines that:
Twenty percent of the U.S. federal budget is devoted to military spending, while the average for our NATO allies is a mere 3.6 percent. Five percent of U.S. annual GDP is allocated to the military, but for the NATO countries, Japan and China, it is well below 2 percent. . . . Today the amount Washington spends on the military each year is $2,300 a person in the U.S. The comparable obligation for the average NATO country is $503 a person. For China it is less than $200 a person.
$2,300 dollars a person per year for the military! And not every person is even paying taxes. This is absurd, seriously. We could cut billions from our military budget just by reining in our military spending to strictly home defense. I’m not holding my breath though.
Okay. Let the tirade of question-begging epithets commence:
Our military budget is completely out of control! We’ve ALREADY spent $400 BILLION on the F-35 & it can fly only on sunny days!!! It can’t even fly at night or fly in clouds or near lightning!!! The F-35 is the perfect illustration of everything that’s wrong with our military industrial complex & it’s just one grain of sand on a beach!
You can be sure a substantial portion of the $400 million found its way into offshore bank accounts.
I only want to see the audit on AF1 + CONDELS (AKA elected official friends and family who fly at taxpayer cost
Military budget bloated? There are a lot of well connected feeding there. Treatment of our military people, retirees and veterans? Shameful. I would HANG Bernie Sanders and some others.
We could cut our military budget by 75% & STILL be spending MORE on military then ANY country on earth!
And they would still buy those $600 toilet seats.
BOB,, can you do a little math? Use the numbers in the article, China spends more then $50,000,000,000 more the the united States. China only spends $200 per person, but their population is over ONE BILLION!
Michael Minkoff doesn’t have a clue as to what he’s talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
Didn’t you go to NYU, Bobbie (by way of Malibu)? How can such a, so called, “smart boy” like yourself misspell a word “….75% & STILL be spending MORE on military “then” ANY country on earth! The word is “than” Bobbie. Too bad you weren’t smart enough or rich enough to get into Oxford.
I’m trying to convey facts to you people and all you want to do is focus on spelling. Thats what you do when you have NOTHING to say in response. As for the spelling, I have trouble seeing the text on the screen sometimes give me a break.
But, Bob, according to you, we are the uneducated rednecks.
I never did learn to type well. As far as Oxford, I had no desire to go & never applied,besides who would ever want to leave Greenwich Village to go live in England???
Tax payers spend over 360 billion a year on law breaking illegals and you are wrong on your damming of our military budget. obama has cut the hell out of our military and is aiding and abetting the terrorist.
I’m a vet and hate seeing my tax dollars going to foreign countries and law breaking illegals.
God bless our military
Damn anyone who supports obama
Where did you come up with that figure??
If the American military stopped policing the rest of the world we could stop spending so much on the military. Obama has made some major dents in the military budgets with a huge smile on his face so what exactly are you complaining about??
Could we cut the federal government and all of its agencies budgets and still survive – definitely!!
By all means, convince your dear leader to spend less money. Good luck.
Another example of bureaucratic incompetence and waste. The reason the military is so careless is because it knows Congress will always vote more money, no matter how much is wasted. They pay $500,000 for vehicles and then GIVE them to local police departments! By utilizing modern computers, the military could account for EVERY PENNY they spend, but that would be too efficient for them. A well-managed private company should be subcontracted to handle the military budgets – but the pork-barrel politicians will not go for that, any more than they will allow the wasteful Postal Service to be managed by a private company.
US $500.00 per person, China $200.00 per person,,, US population, about 300 milion, China population, about 1 Billion ;;;
500 X 300,000,000 people= $150,000,000,000,, US Spends…. 200 X 1,000,000,000 people= $200,000,000,000 China spends,, which means China spends mofre then the United States!
We spend OVER $700 Billion. China spends $165 Billion. Russia $90 Billion. If our military budget was just DOUBLE of China’s & Russia’s COMBINED we could save $200 Billion!
Maybe but our Democrat run federal government is more bloated and un-auditable than the military!! And if the military has a bloated budget and is un-auditable, who is to blame for that – the federal government!!! The federal government has been running without a budget for years and does anyone consider that a problem???
Take care of our veterans and soldiers and clean out the bureaucracy and spending in the Pentagon that is meaningless. We cannot afford important efforts so let’s audit the Pentagon. We have to audit all government agencies, the waste is outrageous and we the taxpayers are paying for it.
What is needed @ DoD is Zero based funding rather than the current Use plus! At the end of the year, ALL budget items start over at $0.00 and funding is added based upon actual programs and the funds they need.
Wow, 50 years ago I had those very same toy soldiers.
There are small cuts that can be done across the board for instance uniforms, the money spent on the 3 changes for all sevices in the last 4 years was cosly and some kind of political lobbyist decision, other cuts i question, we havent weapons qualified bi-annually in 5 years, schools are canx and training has stagnated, this country is damn lucky the military is operating with any success at all.