President Bush has proposed over $500 billion in basic defense spending for the next fiscal year. And this doesn't include many items such as veteran care, extra appropriations for the continuing war in Iraq, etc.
At the same time Bush brags about eliminating 141 domestic programs. The conservative manta has always been that you cannot solve social problems by "throwing money at them". Why don't we ever hear that we can't solve the defense problem by "throwing money at it"? When are we going to finally understand that the attempts to solve problems by violent means only sows the seeds for more violence?
If we wanted to do something effective to create a more peaceful world, we would increase the Peace Corps ten-fold, which would have the effect of elevating U.S. prestige in the eyes of the rest of the world. We would increase exchange student programs. We would stop selling arms to the rest of the world, and sell or give them things they really need.
Bush's defense budget would be the largest, even in real terms, since World War II. It is said to be larger than that of the next 10 countries combined. Does this make any sense to anybody? When is sanity going to be restored?
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The entire budget can be viewed at http://budget.gov . Scroll down to the bottom and click on the "defense" link to open to the defense budget.
Indeed, it proposes a ridiculous amount of spending towards military personnel and the technology (i.e. weapons) to support them.
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