REPORT: U.S. Military Spending Has Almost Doubled Since 2001. By Judd Legum on April 11, 2011 at 10:00 am "REPORT: U.S. Military Spending Has Almost Doubled Since 2001" A new report released today by SIPRI, a Swedish-based think tank, reveals that U.S. military spending has almost doubled since 2001. The U.S. spent an astounding $698 billion on the military last year, an 81% increase over the last decade. U.S. spending on the military last year far exceeded any other country. As a percentage of GDP, U.S. military spending has increased from 3.1% in 2001 to 4.8% last year. The report notes that, “even in the face of efforts to bring down the soaring US budget deficit, military spending continues to receive privileged treatment.”
How big is our U.S. Military Budget...WTF?????? How Does U.S. Defense Spending Compare with Other Countries? In 2008, the United States spent $607 billion on our military. Far more than any other country as British author David McCandless illustrates in the graphic to the right. But as McCandless goes on to show in the rest of this Datablog post, focusing on spending totals alone doe not provide an accurate context to judge U.S. military spending by.
The U.S. is a wealthy country with a larger Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than Japan, Germany, and China combined. McCandless compensated for this fact and you can see the result after the jump: At 4% of GDP U.S. spending on defense is tied for 8th world wide. Posted in Security [slideshow_deploy] Great! Our lawmakers must rein in government and cut spending to get America back on track. And now you can get a free 7-page e-book on government spending, packed with analysis and recommendations by Heritage experts. War costs may total $2.4 trillion. By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade, or nearly $8,000 per man, woman and child in the country, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate scheduled for release Wednesday.
A previous CBO estimate put the wars' costs at more than $1.6 trillion. This one adds $705 billion in interest, taking into account that the conflicts are being funded with borrowed money. The new estimate also includes President Bush's request Monday for another $46 billion in war funding, said Rep. Assuming that Iraq accounts for about 80% of that total, the Iraq war would cost $1.9 trillion, including $564 billion in interest, said Thomas Kahn, Spratt's staff director.
"The number is so big, it boggles the mind," said Rep. Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for the White House budget office, said, "Congress should stop playing politics with our troops by trying to artificially inflate war funding levels. " Senate OKs defense bill, 68-29. The Senate on Thursday sent the massive 2010 Pentagon policy bill to the president's desk for signing.
The Senate approved the bill authorizing $680 billion in defense spending by a vote of 68-29. For the first time in a decade-long effort, the bill will include a provision that expands the federal hate-crimes law to cover offenses based on sexual orientation. The provision received a boost from the Democratic majority in Congress and has President Barack Obama’s backing. Democrats view the successful passage of hate-crimes legislation as a tribute to the late Sen.
The 2010 defense authorization bill also continues to fund an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But Obama is not expected to veto the defense authorization bill. While Obama is not likely to veto the policy bill, he has yet to take a definitive stance over the 2010 defense appropriations bill. World Military Spending. The global financial and economic crisis resulted in many nations cutting back on all sorts of public spending, and yet military spending continued to increase. Only in 2012 was a fall in world military expenditure noted — and it was a small fall. How would continued spending be justified in such an era? Before the crisis hit, many nations were enjoying either high economic growth or far easier access to credit without any knowledge of what was to come. A combination of factors explained increased military spending in recent years before the economic crisis as earlier SIPRI reports had also noted, for example: Foreign policy objectivesReal or perceived threatsArmed conflict and policies to contribute to multilateral peacekeeping operationsAvailability of economic resources The last point refers to rapidly developing nations like China and India that have seen their economies boom in recent years.
China, for the first time, ranked number 2 in spending in 2008. The Federal Pie Chart. Military Budget in the USA is too much. World Military Spending.