The Military Gravy Train: Full Speed Ahead

[Draggingtree]

Mises:

The Military Gravy Train: Full Speed Ahead

 

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015 Andre Syrios

 

There’s something very odd about the United States military that makes many of the most budget-hawkish fiscal conservatives turn into starry-eyed, big government welfare pushers. The hypocrisy is breathtaking; at the same time as many conservatives are talking about “America’s descent into socialism” they are pushing their own brand of military socialism to ever more absurd lengths.

 

At a whopping $581 billion per year, the United States already spends more than the rest of the world combined on its military. However, even that number doesn’t represent the entire picture. As Robert Higgs has shown, when everything is included (from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the nuclear weapons expenditures in the State Department to the net interest on past debt-financed defense outlays, etc.) that sum is actually over one trillion dollars. Despite this, every Republican presidential candidate is pushing to increase the military budget. Even Rand Paul proposes adding $76.5 billion to the defense budget — which by itself is more than the military budgets of all but two other countries in the world (China and Saudi Arabia).