US spends $1.15 billion a day on "defense": Asia Times

[teryang]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/FH19Dj01.html

Military spending nears $1 trillion
By Thalif Deen


<The final tab for this year, Goldring said, is likely to be about $500 billion...><snip>

<"Despite President Bush's rhetoric about realigning military forces, the new military budget still funds Cold War weapons designed to counter expected Soviet developments. But the Soviet Union hasn't existed for more than a decade," she said.

Frida Berrigan, a senior research associate at the World Policy Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center, said that according to the 2005 budget, the US will spend about $1.15 billion a day, or $11,000 a second, on defense. "In comparison, we spend half that on public education per year per child in the United States," she said.

Under the Bush administration, Pentagon spending has increased more than 23% (in adjusted dollars). But while many Americans think that money is for the "war on terrorism", that is not the case, Berrigan said. The defense allocation does not include the costs of ongoing fighting - about $5 billion each month - in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"These costs are paid through emergency supplementals. So far, the US Congress has signed off on $190 billion in supplemental spending for war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan," she said. <snip>

Let's see my daughter spends her Senior high school year in trailers, my local taxes have gone up 75 percent in two years, and the Federal and State governments will only pay for less than thirty percent of costs of recovery from Hurricane Charley.

[indepat]

1. I wonder if we are safer, but I don't wonder if the defense-industrial

complex is getting a windfall especially on its no-bid, unlimited-cost-overrun contracts.