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by obrero 3819 days ago
The DoD is the third biggest agency but does not include Veterans Affairs (3.7% of budget), the State Department (1.6% of budget), Homeland Security (1.5%), or the CIA (1.4%). I don't even include the DoE, which among other things handles nukes, or NASA which launches military satellites, has secret mission itineraries etc.

Then you also have to count that portion of the interest on the debt that was due to past military spending.

The amount of military spending the US government does is higher than what you are presenting.
1 comments
13thLetter 3818 days ago
If you're going to lump together everything even tenuously connected to the military (all of NASA? all of the State Department? all of the Department of Energy?), I'd feel entitled to lump together everything that sends out checks, and the military would still be smaller -- much smaller, in fact. Interest on the debt isn't going to help you either, as we'd have to slice out the entitlements portion of that as well.

And, of course, this doesn't even get into the question of whether the amount of military spending is right or wrong. "Look at this huge number! It's bigger than this other number!" isn't a meaningful argument. "This number is bigger than it should be, and here's why" is.

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obrero 3816 days ago
> If you're going to lump together everything even tenuously connected to the military (all of NASA? all of the State Department? all of the Department of Energy?)

I very clearly said I am not going to lump together NASA and the DoE. Now you're claiming to people, who can clearly read my post, that I did lump them in, when I explicitly did not lump then it.

I do lump the State Department in with the military, as it's all more or less the same thing, beyond even that the CIA etc. routinely uses the State Department for cover ( http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/06/state_dept... ). Foreign embassies that have the ambassador go out and threaten the other state's executive with US military intervention can't really be considered on the domestic social spending side of this military/social breakdown that is being discussed.

> It's bigger than this other number

The point is that military spending was being presented as smaller than it is - by saying veteran's benefits were not part of military spending etc.

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