Romney's "4% for Freedom" is 100% impossible

[jmowreader]

15. We are NOT currently spending more than all other nations combined

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the whole world spends $1.735 trillion on their militaries. Of that, the US spends $711 billion, which is nearly five times the spending of the second-place nation, China. The whole world outside our borders spends $1.024 trillion on defense.

It's hard to accurately determine how much money we actually spend on defense because Members of Congress love to bury pet projects that have little to nothing to do with defense in the defense authorization act. I am not sure if other countries' lawmakers do the same thing, but (especially in places like China) it's not really likely.

I can understand wanting to increase military spending by $313 billion, which would have US spending equal that of the rest of the world combined; Bush's Guernica left our equipment in such a state of disrepair we should have just buried the shit in the desert before coming home. We need new helicopters, new tanks and a replacement for the HMMWV that gets more than 6 MPG. (You read that right: the Humvees the Army relies on get worse gas mileage than a tractor-trailer.) Unfortunately, that's going to take a shitload of money and money is the government commodity that is in the shortest supply.

Now, here's what we should do to solve the problem of Romney campaigning on the perceived need to quadruple military spending: pass a law before Congress recesses to ask the voters for their jobs back that every dollar of increased military spending has to be offset by a dollar of income tax increase. And no, it can't be a "loophole closing," a new fee on something-or-other, termination of a social program, or a reduced tax credit--it has to be an increase in tax rates. If he wants to quadruple defense spending, he can work up the political will to pay for it. The odds of his being elected probably dropped from the 44th floor through the floor of the basement on the strength of his running mate's imagined three-hour marathon, but we still need to make preparations.