First of all, please read this article http://mondediplo.com/2008/02/05military by Chalmers Johnson, a hate America first guy, in Le Mond today. Be warned, it's a liberal piece of claptrap on how the US military spending is bankrupting America.

My response...

First of all, anyone or any article that talks about "wars of imperialism" or references "neconservatives" and the like instantly loses my respect for any objectivity or intellectual honesty. As an aside before I get started: What is a neocon anyway?  Just because some pinheads at the Project for the New American Century, some other place like it, write an article or two, doesn't mean that all conservatives are suddenly "neocons". It's like the word has become the new N-word for liberals, with the same venom and hatred that the bigots of segregation used against blacks with the other N-word.  Hey, I like that: Neocon is to liberals what the n-word is to racist hatemongers. Anyway...

The article in question is typical of liberal philosophy that the US military and the military-industrial complex is a blight on the economy.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  As of 2003, military outlays represents only 3.7% of GDP.  The obvious high water marks 1944 and 1945 (37.5% and 36.8% of GDP), makes the current percentage pale by comparison.  Since 1970, military outlays have been less than 10% of GDP.  Even during the Reagan buildup of the 1980's, military spending represented 6.3% its highest point. All of which you can read http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size.php.

Mr. Johnson attempts to paint the typical liberal comparison between what the US spends and the rest of the world.  He breathlessly states that the US spends more than the rest of the world combined... as if it some great injustice.  We can do this quite easily since we also have the largest economy in the world. California alone ranks 8th of the world's largest economies.  Johnson uses the term "defense-related" to describe the horrors of spending going over $1 trillion.  He then starts to list everything from the FBI, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, to NASA to get to his $1 trillion figure.  With that reasoning, I'm sure that some part of Medicare or Medicaid budget is paid to elderly WWII, Korean War and Vietnam veterans, therefore they, too, are "defense related". Final point on this is that Johnson wants us to believe that the military-industrial complex and this great economy have somehow formed a symbiotic relationship and that neither could exist without the other.  You will see further down that this just can't be true.

Mr. Johnson says that this spending is unsustainable.  I counter that what is unsustainable is the throwing away of money on failed "entitlement programs".  The Congressional Budget Office at http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/78xx/doc7851/03-08-Long-Term%20Spending.pdf last year indicated that in fiscal 2007, the US spent $2.7 trillion on Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid alone (using the same type of enphasis as Johnson). This represents 45% of total outlays and 9% of GDP, or three times the defense spending of 2003. The report goes on to state that the percent of GDP, if these programs remain unchanged, will balloon to 20% of the total US GDP by 2030. That, my friends, is the truly unsustainable.  What is defined as unsustainable comes to us from the CBO. To wit: "... the closest thing may be CBO’s
succinct benchmark for sustainability: “[F]or any path of spending and revenues to be
sustainable, the resulting debt must eventually grow no faster than the economy”—i.e.,
debt represents a constant or declining ratio to GDP (CBO, 1997).” According to CBO,
increases in entitlements lead to increases in government borrowing and debt, which
increase interest costs, consuming an ever larger share of the budget. If allowed to
continue, debt would reach levels that would displace private capital, lower investment,
and cause output to decline."  In other words, we would have to raise taxes to such levels that people, rich or middle class, would no longer have the disposable income to invest or consume.  The economy would shrink due to the lack of inflows of capital. The tax base would decline as businesses laid off workers. Entitlements would go up to support the new unemployed and the economy would tailspin out of control.

Furthermore, The White House Council of Economic Advisers report in 2005:  "In 1962, entitlement spending, which at the time consisted primarily of Social Security benefits, absorbed 2.5% of the nation’s GDP and about 13% of the federal budget. Medicare and Medicaid were introduced in the 1960s, and over time both the generosity of the three major entitlement programs and the sizes of the eligible populations have increased. In 2005, these three programs accounted for 8.0% of GDP and made up just over 40% of the federal budget – and that does not include the substantial contribution to Medicaid made by the states."
What is more troubling than the amount of money spent on "entitlements" (The very term is aggrevating; as if people are 'entitled' to take the money we send to Washington.) has created no change in the number of poor in America.  We have spent nearly $6 trillion on poverty programs and the number in poverty hasn't changed and it has gotten worse.  Don't believe me?  According to the Census Bureau at, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/histpov/hstpov2.html, in 1965, the US population was 194 million and the percent deemed in poverty was 17.3 or 33 million.  In 2006, The population was 296 million and the percent in poverty was 12.3% or 36 million Americans.  There has been a net change of 3 million more Americans in poverty since the Great Society programs were inacted in 1965.  Forty-two years later, $6 trillion later, and we still haven't even come close to winning the War on Poverty? WTF!!!! Where is the outrage on this waste of money? This Chalmers Johnson guy wants me to believe that the military-industrial complex is at fault for everything from the national debt to the lack of capital improvements in manufacturing sector of America. What utter nonsense. So what that we spent $5 trillion (over 50 years) for nukes we never used. I think that the alternative, subjugation under a Soviet/Communist tyranny, is far, far, far worse.  Nukes kept western Europe free.  The EU exists today because of that $5 trillion spent at keeping the Soviet Army on the east side of the Iron Curtain. What is true is the fact that our dinosaur tax policy stiffles investment in the very things Johnson wants to improve.  Johnson's answer? Repeal the Bush tax cuts "on the wealthy".  That's exactly what the US economy needs during a downturn is more money taken out of the private sector to be redistributed by the public sector. Democrats in Congress decry the "billion dollars a day" spent in Iraq.  Well, we have spent an average of $3 billion a day, every day, since 1965 (43 years worth) to achieve 3 million more people in poverty.  Iraq won't last forever, but it seems that the statistics of poverty and the money we are throwing at it will last forever. 

Why isn't anyone talking about reforming and consolidating these entitlement programs? If the status quo is so wonderful with regard to these programs, why are 3 million more people in poverty than were in poverty in 1965?  These entitlements basically cover 4 areas, regardless of age: medical, income, nutrition and housing.  With $1.6 trillion, we could create four programs that would provide a basket of benefits based on the real needs of the person in question.  If they were an unemployed single 20-something, they would need income assistence and maybe housing assistance.  A couple that is 65+ years old would need all three.  A working poor family of four would need housing, some nutrition, some medical but little income assistance. See? Instead of just creating yet another anti-poverty program, tailor the assistance of the person in question to what they really need. Wouldn't that be a far more effective use of our tax dollars? Wouldn't the streamlining and greater efficiencies save hundreds of billions of dollars?

The bottom line is that your article you posted is wonderful reading for all the liberals out there that believe in the "neocon" boogeyman, the "military-industrial complex" fairy, and the myth that defense spending is bankrupting America.  For me, the military guy (obviously biased, right?) and anyone with even a passing understanding of economics and reality, it's poppycock.