We need to carefully examine our largest category of annual expense-defense-to see if it can be reduced without jeopardizing the nation’s security. Setting aside for a moment the question of who among us should pay for our defense, what are we getting for our investment
Our fiscal 2008 military expenditures were $643.4 billion, including the $162 billion supplemental appropriations for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That doesn’t include the $145.2 billion appropriation for the war on terror, $45.7 billion for veteran’s affairs, $34.3 billion for homeland security and $9.3 billion for the storage and maintenance of our nuclear weapons. If these other items aggregating $234.5 billion were included, our total defense bill would be $832.2 billion, or approximately 25 percent of our total national expenditures.
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