Friday, October 2, 2009

Interesting Take on Defense Spending


More research on Defense as a share of the budget produced this interesting take...
World Military Spending, GlobalIssues.org, Last updated: Sunday, September 13, 2009

">from the Global Issues site

Furthermore, “national defense” category of federal spending is typically just over half of the United States discretionary budget (the money the President/Administration and Congress have direct control over, and must decide and act to spend each year. This is different to mandatory spending, the money that is spent in compliance with existing laws, such as social security benefits, medicare, paying the interest on the national debt and so on). For recent years here is how military, education and health budgets (the top 3) have fared:

http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=3149&issue_id=19 links to Pres. Bush's 2009 Budget.
The Pie Chart at the top of this post came from this group. The link here will take you to a table as well.

When asking the question why the group's budget analysis is different, the answers are: http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=2423&issue_id=18

Taken from http://www.fcnl.org/about/ . They are the Friends Committee on National Legislation, A Quaker Lobby in the Public Interest.

Who knew? Here is part of their description:
Who We Are
The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) fields the largest team of registered peace lobbyists in Washington, DC. Founded in 1943 by members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), FCNL staff and volunteers work with a nationwide network of tens of thousands of people from many different races, religions, and cultures to advocate social and economic justice, peace, and good government. FCNL is nonpartisan.
FCNL is also the oldest registered ecumenical lobby in Washington, DC. The organization's legislative priorities and policies are set by a General Committee made up of some 220 Quakers from around the country. FCNL's multi-issue advocacy connects historic Quaker testimonies on peace, equality, simplicity, and truth with peace and social justice issues which the United States government is or should be addressing. 
FCNL is a nonpartisan 501(c)4 public interest lobby. It is neither a political action committee (PAC) nor a special interest lobby. The FCNL Education Fund is a parallel 501(c)3 organization that supports the research, analysis and education for which FCNL is known and respected.


Hopefully, you will have time to look at their numbers and their explanations of the differences among budget analysis'. It is very interesting. I had read some of Mr. Shah's,site, articles before. He is nothing if not thorough. He will make you question and give you much more to research.

9 comments:

  1. It might be my computer or browser (safari), but I can't get to some of the links...

    This is an interesting post and I will try to get back to you in the morning.

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  2. Thomas,
    Oh yes, the first one is not linking. It was from his own html but I guess blogspot doesn't care for it.
    If you use the last link, it takes you to his site then click on the link to World Military Spending for his full, long, article.
    He has been around a while and does an excellent job at research.
    Kanna

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  3. Thanks and thank you for the post. I was out of commission for couple of days with a big remodel job. I am still not done but I will try to do some reading around tonight....

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  4. Figured you were busy when you didn't comment back to us on your blog.
    Hope you don't over-tax your brain like I do. Oops no you are younger so your brain can still handle it all.
    See, I was going to ask you about something I saw or read about your part of the country-I can't remember what it was. It will come to me at midnight.

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  5. Interesting. That pie chart sort of puts our relative spending and national values into perspective. Must be a matter of national priorities or maybe national obliviousness, eh?

    Military Expenditures in USD*

    World Total--------1,470,000,000,000
    NATO Total--------1,049,875,309,000
    US------------------------663,700,000,000
    EU Total----------------312,259,000,000
    France--------------------70,613,746,423
    P. R. of China-----------70,308,600,000
    UK--------------------------65,149,500,000
    Japan---------------------48,860,000,000
    Germany-----------------45,930,000,000
    ...

    The US accounts for 45% of worlds military expenditures with only 4.5% of the worlds population if my numbers are right.

    * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

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  6. Here I thought graphs would be the thing for most people.
    Thanks for adding to the information.

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  7. Charts and graphs work best for me. I get all tangled up in the linguistics, as you know. ha!

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