Ok, so there was a bit of buzz a month or so ago about “Obama Calls For National Civilian Stasi“, and currently people are reacting to notions that he supports a military draft (both seemingly disconnected in online discourse I’ve seen so far). But in reviewing his prior statements I’ve spotted one thing noteworthy I hadn’t thought much about before:
“We will ask Americans to serve,” the Illinois Democrat said. “We will create new opportunities for Americans to serve.”
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
www.chicagotribune.com…
So even if his notion of all children from middle to high school serving in a would-be “National Security Force” is valid to people out there, let’s talk about the digits he’s referring to…
The ‘Military’ Budget
First I’ll lay out the most conservative 2007 numbers: $439.3 BILLION.
Now let’s get dirty…
War Resistors (2008): $1,449 TRILLION
Global Security (2008): $623 BILLION
Slate.com (2008): $713.1 BILLION
Global Issues (2008): $711 BILLION
White House (2008): $623.1 BILLION
Arms Control Center (2009): $711 BILLION
‘Amazingly’, no mainstream news articles came up that surpassed raw White House estimates by even one dollar.
So some will surely wonder why some figures dwarf others. Perhaps that one in particular is overboard… or not. You see there is a deep integration of both Military Industrial Complex spending that lurks throughout Federal budgets that doesn’t come up in initial estimates, and Homeland Security spending to parallel it. Homeland Security numbers are seperate and on their own. In 2008 BushCo. received $47 BILLION in funding (more than requested), and have an estimated $50.5 BILLION slated for 2009.
Back on Obama: Even following the most ‘conservative’ White House DOD-budget estimates he seeks to spend at least $.6 TRILLION on his Youth oriented “National Security Force”. Something tells me that these numbers aren’t being considered by all of the numerous political analyst reports on Obama’s economic and tax burden outlook reports.
I see it as: Either his quiet proposals are laughable at best, or the United State’s worst nightmare in history at worst.
Ignorance Is Futile! 