Since we are coming to the end of 2010, and I've heard a lot of people bagging on the healthcare legislation, while championing the tax cuts for the wealthy, I thought I would take it upon myself to post a current tally of our biggest national expense (spoiler alert: It isn't education or infrastructure...though it should be).
$4-$6 trillion for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that include some of the following expenses that we are paying for instead repairing aging bridges, improving our education system, investing in development that will result in a better future for our kids:
$547 million P.R. money to sell us on the war
$100 million security contract in Afghanistan to XE (a subsidiary of Blackwater)
$840 billion per year on inefficient military spending (i.e. manufacturing parts for weaponry that is out of date or no longer needed)
$27 billion to citizen mercenary groups in Iraq and Afghanistan
$51 billion to military for no-bid contracts
$6 billion to Blackwater to train cops in Iraq
$7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan
$500 million dollar planes that cannot fly in the rain
$9 billion in cash sent to Iraq that cannot be accounted for
$1.5 billion for a new embassy in Iraq
$1.2 billion over five years to boost Yemen's security forces
$60 billion training and supporting Afghan troops
$375 million for arms for citizen mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan
$4.2 million New York City penthouse for the Afghani Ambassador
A navy eleven times the size of the next most militarized nation
We spend 15 times more on our military than the next most militarized 26 nations combined, and 24 of those nations are our allies. We cannot afford our empire, and at this point, the upkeep of our empire will likely be the undoing of our country. By my guestimate, we are in the same place the U.K. was in the '70s; high unemployment, a waning empire, and a country so mired in red tape that the politicians couldn't get anything done. Let's hope we aren't making the U.S. last year's beauty queen.
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