Cut Military Spending: Fund Human Needs

The United States government spent about $3.54 trillion in FY 2011. A third of our dollars went to the military: the Pentagon, Iraq and Afghanistan, care for wounded and retired soldiers, maintaining our nuclear arsenal, homeland security, NASA, and $180 billion in interest on money borrowed to pay for our recent wars.

We are pitting these dollars against care for retirees, the sick, the poor, children, and our land. It is time to stop spending so much money on the military. But what can we cut?

1. Our nuclear arsenal. We don’t need 5000 nuclear weapons. A hundred would surely satisfy even the most hawkish among us, at a $20 billion savings a year.

2. New fighter airplanes. The only reason we need them is that we keep selling and giving our current best to other nations. Stop providing spare parts and maintenance. Buy them back. Shut down the F-22 and F-35 programs at a savings of a trillion dollars.

3. Close a few hundred military bases and stop subsidizing military golf courses. There are at least 230 golf courses on at least 1077 military bases – nobody has a full count of either. Goal: a billion dollars in savings.

Analysts agree the Pentagon could readily cut a trillion dollars in spending over ten years: the half a trillion already agreed to plus the half a trillion in the sequester. The items listed above only a few examples of the possibilities.