Monumental Government Waste: The National Security Budget, The Root Cause Of The National Deficit

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Monumental-Government-Wast-by-michael-payne-Budget-Deficit_Congress_Corporatism_Crisis-131018-820.html



Monumental Government Waste: The National Security Budget, The Root Cause Of The National Deficit
OpEdNews Op Eds 10/18/2013 at 10:19:30
By michael payne

Here we go again; one more crisis involving a government shutdown and a narrowly escaped debt ceiling catastrophe has been averted or, to be more explicit, the problem has been kicked down the road a few months. But the next big dog fight in Congress over the national deficit of nearly $17 trillion looms on the horizon; and then we'll face the next crisis and the next and it will never stop.

The real solution to this national deficit problem, the clear root cause of this never-ending problem is sitting right before the eyes of these politicians and this president; they are fully aware of this bloated, obscene budget and the detrimental effect that it is having on this country but, yet, they pretend they can't see it, and look for other lesser solutions that won't come even close to solving the crux of the problem.

There is no question that America must maintain a strong military and national defense against any and all potential enemies. The safety and security of the American people is the foremost responsibility of the U.S. government. But in doing so it must not allow the military-security establishment to overspend to the point that it inflicts a great amount of damage upon the financial stability of this nation; we can't afford overkill, we can't afford a military empire but, unfortunately, that's exactly what's been happening and it's time to bring this festering situation under control.

The amount of taxpayer dollars being consumed by the military-security entities totals over $1.2 trillion annually and this completely dwarfs any other areas of governmental spending. This article indicates that the individual elements of this budget total $1.2 trillion; this similar article shows a total of $931 billion because it doesn't include the costs of interest on the debt. Each clearly depicts a situation that is spinning out of control. Forget about the base defense budget of something like $600 billion, that's the barebones, base budget that is only the tip of this giant iceberg.