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In reply to the discussion: White House: Raising Medicare Eligibility Age Is Off The Table [View all]Mutatis Mutandis
(90 posts)and this is from 2011, so rest assured it is actually higher
The Real U.S. National Security Budget, The Figure No One Wants You to See
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175361/
What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.
Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security budget. Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That already gets you into a startling price range -- close to $700 billion for 2012 -- but thats barely more than half of it. If Americans were ever presented with the real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.
Take that in for a moment. Its true; you wont find that figure in your daily newspaper or on your nightly newscast, but its no misprint. It may even be an underestimate. In any case, its the real thing when it comes to your tax dollars. The simplest way to grasp just how Americans could pay such a staggering amount annually for security is to go through what we know about the U.S. national security budget, step by step, and add it all up.
So, here we go. Buckle your seat belt: its going to be a bumpy ride.
Fortunately for us, on February 14th the Obama administration officially released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget request. Of course, it hasnt been passed by Congress -- even the 2011 budget hasnt made it through that august body yet -- but at least we have the most recent figures available for our calculations. For 2012, the White House has requested $558 billion for the Pentagons annual base budget, plus an additional $118 billion to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At $676 billion, thats already nothing to sneeze at, but its just the barest of beginnings when it comes to what American taxpayers will actually spend on national security. Think of it as the gigantic tip of a humongous iceberg.
To get closer to a real figure, its necessary to start peeking at other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security spending are squirreled away...............................
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full details at the link above