But by all means, let’s cut food stamps and Social Security benefits
by digby
Hey a few hundred billion here, a few hundred billion there pretty soon you’re talking about real money:
The Defense Department’s 2012 budget totaled $565.8 billion, more than the annual defense budgets of the 10 next largest military spenders combined, including Russia and China. How much of that money is spent as intended is impossible to determine.
In its investigation, Reuters has found that the Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn’t need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn’t known. And it repeatedly falls prey to fraud and theft that can go undiscovered for years, often eventually detected by external law enforcement agencies.
Even if the Pentagon accounting was perfect in every way it would still be an epic misappropriation of funds to spend this much money on the defense sector. To do it while literally taking food out of people’s mouths and declaring them to be too “dependent” on government is morally repulsive.
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