America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $57 million per hour.
Americans account for 4.34 percent of the population, US military spending accounts for 37 percent of the global total.”
The government has spent $4.8 trillion on wars abroad since 9/11, with $7.9 trillion in interest.
The government lost more than $160 billion to waste and fraud by the military and defense contractors: With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort dubbed as the “coalition of the willing” has quickly evolved into the “coalition of the billing,” with American taxpayers forced to cough up billions of dollars for cash bribes, luxury bases, a highway to nowhere, faulty equipment, salaries for so-called “ghost soldiers,” and overpriced anything and everythingassociated with the war effort, including a $640 toilet seat and a $7600 coffee pot.
The U.S. government spends more on wars (and military occupations) abroad every year than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. In fact, the U.S. spends more on its military than the eight highest-ranking nations with big defense budgets combined. The reach of America’s military empire includes close to 800 bases in as many as 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As investigative journalist David Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.”
Trump wants to increase military spending by $54 billion.
Americans account for 4.34 percent of the population, US military spending accounts for 37 percent of the global total.”
The government has spent $4.8 trillion on wars abroad since 9/11, with $7.9 trillion in interest.
The government lost more than $160 billion to waste and fraud by the military and defense contractors: With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort dubbed as the “coalition of the willing” has quickly evolved into the “coalition of the billing,” with American taxpayers forced to cough up billions of dollars for cash bribes, luxury bases, a highway to nowhere, faulty equipment, salaries for so-called “ghost soldiers,” and overpriced anything and everythingassociated with the war effort, including a $640 toilet seat and a $7600 coffee pot.
The U.S. government spends more on wars (and military occupations) abroad every year than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. In fact, the U.S. spends more on its military than the eight highest-ranking nations with big defense budgets combined. The reach of America’s military empire includes close to 800 bases in as many as 160 countries, operated at a cost of more than $156 billion annually. As investigative journalist David Vine reports, “Even US military resorts and recreation areas in places like the Bavarian Alps and Seoul, South Korea, are bases of a kind. Worldwide, the military runs more than 170 golf courses.”
Trump wants to increase military spending by $54 billion.
- $270 billion to repair U.S. public schools, and twice that much to modernize them.
- $120 billion a year to fix the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. With 32% of the nation’s major roadways in poor or mediocre condition, it’s estimated that improving the nation’s roads and bridges would require $120 billion a year through 2020, although it will take “many trillions ... to fix the country's web of roads, bridges, railways, subways and bus stations.”
- $251 million for safety improvements and construction for Amtrak.
- $690 million to care for America’s 70,000 aging veterans.
- $11 billion wasted or lost in Iraq in just one year could have paid 220,000 teachers’ salaries.
- The yearly cost of stationing just one soldier in Iraq could have fed 60 American families.
- $30 billion per year to end starvation and hunger around the world.
- $11 billion per year to provide the world—including our own failing cities—with clean drinking water.
- Use the $10 billion spent every year to provide arms, equipment, training and advice internationally to more than 180 countries to start paying down the overwhelming $19 trillion national debt. This figure doesn’t include the hundreds of billions spent each year on maintaining the U.S. military presence around the globe.
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