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Budget Context: Proposed Defense Spending

Monday March 5, 2007
The Bush Administration has proposed a staggeringly large defense budget, $623 billion -- and remember, this is direct expenses (there are military-related expenditures in other budget categories). This budget is 60 percent larger than the one Bush proposed in 2001; it woiuld eat up 67 percent of federal discretionary spending. In fact, the proposed Pentagon budget is $10 billion more than Social Security for 2007-2008.

Numbers like this are too large for context; hope these comparisons from The Globalist Quiz help:

  • This is more than the combined profits of all Fortune 500 companies.
    In 2005, the combined profits of the Fortune 500 companies totaled $610 billion ($9.1 trillion in revenue). This was 10.2 percent greater than 2004.
  • This is double the combined defense expenditures for the next 10 nations.
    In 2005, the next big spenders -- defense-wise -- spent only $321 billion combined. Who are there? The UK, France, Japan, China, Germany, Italy, Saudia Arabia, Russia, India and South Korea.
  • This is more than the entire economy of the 16h largest economy, The Netherlands.
    GDP for The Netherlands (population 16.3 million) in 2005 was $595 billion.
Should Congress pass this budget (and remember, some want more spending), the Pentagon would spent money at the rate of $1.2 million a minute.

Comments

March 6, 2007 at 11:56 pm
(1) David says:

I believe in all military solutions. I also believe we should enlarge our military so we can secure our borders and take on other evil countries (Iran, Syrla, North Korea, and all such ilk). Peace through superior firepower!

March 7, 2007 at 2:01 am
(2) uspolitics says:

Ummmm …. we spend more on military than the next 10 nations in the world and you think we should spend MORE?

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