It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
History shows what happens when we ignore our national defense.
The article also ignores the fact that we are in a war and the fact that our military isn't as big as it needs to be for the job that needs to be done.
Originally posted by marg6043
No, our nation is not in a war, our president is the one that have created a war.
Two different things here, his war is bankrupting our nation.
Originally posted by Johnmike
Originally posted by marg6043
No, our nation is not in a war, our president is the one that have created a war.
Two different things here, his war is bankrupting our nation.
Can't we have a discussion without this sort of idiotic, partisan rhetoric? I mean, I never supported the war from the beginning, but I'm so damn tired of everyone pointing the finger at Bush for the entire Iraq war. There we tons of people in our intelligence who supported the war, tons of people throughout the executive, and massive, bi-partisan support for it throughout Congress. All of a sudden, when the public starts speaking out against it, you have the Democrats quickly switch sides.
Don't turn this into a political game of finger-pointing. Thanks.
Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration has spent more than 30 billion dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds and another 20 billion dollars in Iraqi funds under its control for the reconstruction effort. The war in general has reportedly cost more than 450 billion dollars.
I don't have the source right now but I read that last fiscal year more that 50% of the budget was spend on social programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and others. That's 50%!!
Originally posted by jackinthebox
Even if this were true, it would not shock or offend me considering that one in eight Americans are living below the poverty line. This includes millions of people who get up and go to work everday at minimum wage jobs.
Now factor in that even if you are making twice what the official poverty line is, you are still poor and have difficulty paying for basic necessities. So now you can see that half of Americans are poor. So then it would make sense that half of our budget has to go to leping the poor, instead of giving them jobs that would pay them a reasonable living wage, like we used to have in this country only decades ago.
Originally posted by grover
I googled federal budget pie chart and clicked on the top ten and not one of them agreed on the appropration of spending... your chart suggests that we spend 19% on defense and that seems terribly low... another suggested 36%, which includes the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and from what I have read that seems more accurate.
Originally posted by grover
Perhaps pittence was the wrong word but when you take into account that one we have only 2 natural borders and the literal impossiblity of actually invading and occupying America by any other nation... the ammount we spend on defense is patently absurd... by all accounts we spend more on defense that Russia, China, Great Britian, France and a few other countries combined... that is insane... we are still running with a cold war military when we don't need it... and not to mention we also have a fetish for high tech high cost war toys... give me a break. We could slash our defense budget in half and still be the most powerful nation, militarly, on the planet. When you add in all the foreign aid we give out ( I am not talking about humanitarian aid for disasters) and the hundreds of bases we maintain overseas.... the good that we could be doing here with that money is staggering.
Originally posted by grover
I know you are an anti-tax fanatic and thats your problem but fortunately most Americans have more common sense... none of us like taxes but our quality of life would be far lower if it weren't for government spending... we already know what corporations would do... take the money and run and screw everybody else.