Guess What Our Government Is Doing With 600 Billion Dollars

[MadHound]

31. That is about half of what we spend on our military

As a general rule of thumb, total military spending is roughly twice of the DoD budget. The reasons for this are multi-fold. First, much of the military budget is not part of the DoD budget, but rather foisted upon other departments. For instance, the budget for the maintenance and upgrade of our nuclear bomb fleet, clearly a military expenditure, is actually counted under the Dept. of Energy budget. This is repeated throughout the government, with military spending being disguised as spending by other departments. Second, there are lots of black budgets voted on that are ultimately military in nature, but aren't counted as part of the DoD budget.

The upshot is that, by best estimates, current total military spending is running at 1.2 trillion, or roughly half our total budget. It is this sort of military spending that is bankrupting our country. If we don't dramatically cut military spending quickly, we will go the way of the Soviet Union, spending all our money on war while leaving the people to suffer here at home. We see that happening already, and it is only going to get worse.