The New York Times calls Obama's new Budget plan "his Agenda for a desired second term":
Military Cuts and Tax Plan Are Central to Obama Budget
by Jackie Calmes, NYTimes -- Feb 13, 2012
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s final budget request of his term amounts to his agenda for a desired second term, with tax increases on the affluent and cuts in spending, especially from the military, both to reduce deficits and to pay for priorities like education, public works, research and clean energy.
[...]
After winding down two wars overseas, Mr. Obama proposed to make good on his often-repeated call to bring troops back and start nation-building at home in symbolic fashion: The budget would use projected military savings -- a gimmick, Republicans say -- to help pay for a six-year, $476 billion program to modernize the nation’s transportation network.
And Mr. Obama once again proposed to narrow inequality in income and opportunity between high- and lower-income Americans, while also reducing annual deficits, through his proposals to raise $1.5 trillion over 10 years mostly from the wealthy but also from closing some corporate tax breaks, chiefly for oil and gas companies.
[...]
But can we really afford to shift billions
away from National Defense, put it towards all the other things that the country needs?
Given that every dollar spent on bombs, is a dollar NOT spent on bridges -- Can we afford NOT to?
Besides it's not like the USA is hasn't already invested plenty into becoming the world's Super-power.
2010 Defense Spending by Country
by rickety -- June 4, 2011
Military Expenditures
The eighteen nations with the largest military budgets in 2010 are shown in the chart above. The United States, with a budget of $698 billion, spends more on defense than the next seventeen nations combined. The United States military spending is almost six times that of the next biggest spender, China ($119 billion) and more than eleven times that of Russia ($59 billion).
Is this really a competition we have to win,
by such an extreme margin? Aren't there other ways to bridge that divide between us and the rest of the world? Some more humanitarian ways.
World Military Spending
by Anup Shah, globalissues.org -- May 02, 2011
The USA is responsible for 43 per cent of the world total, distantly followed by the China (7.3% of world share), UK (3.7%), France (3.6%), and Russia (3.6%).
President Obama is well aware of our super-sized Military Budget, as he described our "over-whelming lead" in this little-watched global race, at the recent State of the Union speech:
President Obama and the defense budget ...
by Glenn Kessler, WashingtonPost -- Jan 12, 2012
[...]
Without a doubt, the United States has the most powerful military in the world, in part because it is the world’s only global power with global responsibilities. The Web site Globalfirepower.com ranks countries based on 45 factors, and the United States tops many of the charts. Here’s one small statistic: The United States had 11 aircraft carriers, as of the end of last year; no other country had more than two. The United Kingdom even is mothballing its single aircraft carrier.
But the president appears to be arguing that the United States has a strong military because its budget is larger than those of the next 10 largest countries combined. The mostly widely cited public source for this claim is the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, whose military expenditure database suggests that the U.S. military budget is bigger than those of the next 19 countries combined.
[...]
Could there be "
Opportunities Costs" that America is paying when so much of
our GDP is dedicated to National Defense, relative to the other "civilized" nations of the world? ... those who have the luxury of spending
most of their national wealth on themselves.
Often thanks to us.
US military budget comparison
by jagadees -- August 5, 2011
Every dollar spent on bombs, is a dollar NOT spent on bridges ...
Isn't it long past time America mend some bridges ... to do some "Nation Building" here at home?
Will there ever come a day when we can take advantage of the current "Peace Dividend"?
-- some long suffering Veterans of foreign wars are likely to say "We've earned it" ... (well actually, THEY earned it.)
Sooner or later, we must re-assess our National priorities ... that is assuming the Party of the Status Quo ever grants us that "luxury" of retrospection.