An idea of how big is the "stimulus plan" ? (1500 Billion $)

www.csbaonline.org...

The Bush Administration has requested $518.3 billion to cover the peacetime costs of the Department of Defense (DoD) in fiscal year (FY) 2009. In addition to this funding in DoD’s “base” budget, the request includes $70 billion to cover costs associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (what the Bush Administration calls the Global War on Terror, or GWOT). Taken together, under the new plan DoD is projected to receive some $588.3 billion in FY 2009.The administration’s FY 2009 request also includes $22.8 billion for Department of Energy and other non-DoD defense activities. Thus, altogether, the FY 2009 request includes $611.1 billion for National Defense. The request for DoD’s base budget (i.e., the budget exclusive of war costs) amounts to a nominal increase of about 7.5 percent from the level of funding approved by Congress for FY 2008. In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, the increase would be some 5 percent (estimates of real change included in this analysis were derived using the GDP deflator).1 This would bring the DoD base budget to its highest level ever, in real terms. The total request for DoD (i.e., the base budget plus war funding) is slightly (about 1 percent) higher in real terms than the budget approved by Congress for 2008. It is below the level provided for FY 2007. However, as the administration acknowledges, its $70 billion request for war funding represents only a down-payment on next year’s war costs. It is possible (perhaps even likely) that when the administration eventually amends its request to include full-year funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the total defense budget for FY 2009 will end up exceeding both the 2007 and 2008 defense budgets. This would make it the largest defense budget since the end of World War II. Even without such an amendment, the total request for 2009 would surpass the peak years of the Korean and Vietnam Wars by, respectively, some $145 billion and $215 billion dollars (in fiscal year 2009 dollars).

So the total of the DOD budget is about half the "stimulus plan".

About the budget for a war against ... let's say, China, or Russia or both ?

Man... a billion is a massive number. anyone who talks about it like its nothing needs to be taken in the street and tard and feathered. Did you know that a BILLION seconds ago it was 1959. how about a billion minutes ago jesus was supposidly walking the earth. sheesh people get your butts off your shoulders!


MessOnTheFED!

[edit on 13-2-2009 by MessOnTheFED!]

Accroding to the Congressional Budget Office the true cost of the stimulus is $3.27 TRILLION.

Sorry but that is just too rich for my blood, sweat and tears

(same link) :

for 2009, defense is likely to account for under 5 percent of GDP

GDP is "Gross Domestic Product".

So
- DOD = 5% GDP
- Stimulus = 10, 12, 15, 20 % GDP ?

Man ...
- 1/5 of the cost of EVERYTHING produced in the US in 1 year ...
- About two months and a half of US' gross production.

The US is 28th on the list of defense spending, it's only 4.06% of GDP.

www.cia.gov...

reply to post by Dbriefed


Come on Dbriefed !

You know that 4 or 5% of the GDP of the most powerful nation in the world (so far ...) is as much as the whole total of the Defense budget of every other nations ! That makes a lot of money, no ?

.... but less than half the money which is thrown into the "stimulus plan" !

reply to post by Dbriefed


Not anymore. I am certain that number need revision - given today's economic circumstances... of course the value of the dollar is also waning, so therein may lie part of the equation.

It has to be put into perspective, how much effort of the Nation is put into defense as a percentage of GDP. The point is that the military budget is a fraction of the GDP and far less of a percentage that other countries budget. Also that the bailouts are many times larger than the total military budget, and we're in far greater risk from the bailout and stimulus spending than we are from spending on the military.