Military Spending

Governments may tax in order to fund only the limited functions of government. They are: 1. To protect the governed from enemies foreign and domestic, that is, to protect the unalienable rights of individuals; 2. To settle disputes between and among free people pursuing their own self-interest in a free, capitalist economy.

Money spent protecting the people of this country from our enemies in the world is one of the few legitimate uses of tax-payer money. To protect our lives and our liberty is the reason we created government in the first place. Why so many Americans think we spend too much on our defense in this post-9/11 world is difficult to understand.

The President's actual budget for 2007 totals $2.4 trillion. This budget request is broken down into the following expenditures:

$586.1 billion - Social Security
$548.8 billion - Defense
$394.5 billion - Medicare
$294.0 billion - Unemployment and welfare
$276.4 billion - Medicaid and other health related
$243.7 billion - Interest on debt
$89.9 billion - Education and training
$76.9 billion - Transportation
$72.6 billion - Veterans' benefits
$43.5 billion - Administration of Justice
$33.1 billion - Natural resources and environment
$32.5 billion - Foreign affairs
$27.0 billion - Agriculture
$26.8 billion - Community and regional development
$25.0 billion - Science and technology
$23.5 billion - Energy
$20.1 billion - General government

Total Expenditures: 2,418,400,000.00

The total requested Military budget of the United States including supplemental spending for the War on Terror, Iraq, and Afghanistan for 2007 was $699 billion, according to CBO, The Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update, August 2007. While every effort should be made to spend productively, efficiently, this $699 billion is the most legitimate expenditure of tax-payer money in the entire budget. It is the dollars dedicated to the preservation of the American way of life. Much of the rest of the list above did not even exist prior to World War II, much less during the Jackson or Washington administrations. The Framers would not recognize this mammoth our government has become.

$586.1 billion - Social Security
$394.5 billion - Medicare
$294.0 billion - Unemployment and welfare
$276.4 billion - Medicaid and other health related
$89.9 billion - Education and training
$76.9 billion – Transportation
$27.0 billion - Agriculture
$26.8 billion - Community and regional development
$25.0 billion - Science and technology
$23.5 billion - Energy

Illegitimate Expenditures: 1,820,100,000.00

Our government’s illegitimate expenditures are nearly three times our total defense budget.

If we limited our government to expenditures for the legitimate functions of government, the national debt could be paid off in a decade and tax-payer rebates would exceed a trillion dollars annually. Furthermore, free enterprise in the retirement insurance, health care, education, transportation, agriculture and energy businesses would result in greater economic growth and health as the government withdraws from the economy and capitalism is allowed to work. The DC Politburo would dissolve resulting in greater efficiency, creativity, and innovation in the private sector, the hallmark of capitalism. Statist politicians would be disarmed and corruption on K Street would all but disappear.