Big Bucks

The military budget, one of the main reasons I dislike Republicans, is set for another huge increase in the 2007 budget. It will increase 5% to $439.3 billion. This does not include costs for war, which in 2006 will cost $120 billion. I’d expect similar figures for 2007, but probably/hopefully lower. Reason I say probably is that we recently replaced something like 3000 troops in Afghanistan with European troops, and there have been persistent calls for lowering troop levels in Iraq. There should at least be a decrease able to bring down the total. If we’re spending $560 Billion in 2007 on military and war, that’s an average of $1931 per person on military. And surely you have better uses for $1100 of that, which is what you’d get back if we were at the Clinton military budget. I should point out, we were doing just fine during that time, and could have brought it down further.

Despite all this money, Rumsfeld admits that terror threats are on the rise. Either that means Bush’s poll numbers are down, or the Bush administration policy is failing. How could bully people into our lifestyle not create more friends?