Remember This Number

You know it's bad, I know it's bad, but just how bad is our defense budget? A whopping $513 billion a year, more than the combined defense budgets of the next highest 25 countries. We're everywhere, trying to do everything, mostly to "feed the beast" that is what the 'sphere usually refers to as the MIC, the military industrial complex. Apparently, Obama is serious about changing that.

Among the programs expected to be heavily cut is the Army's Future Combat Systems, a network of vehicles linked by high-tech communications that has been plagued by technical troubles and delays; with a price tag exceeding $150 billion, it is now one of the most costly military efforts.
Gates also is considering cutting a new $20 billion communications satellite program and reducing the number of aircraft carriers from 11 to 10, and he plans to eliminate elements of the decades-old missile defense effort that are over budget or considered ineffective, according to industry and administration sources.

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Several experts said the Pentagon budget plan last year was an effort to force the hand of a new administration and stands as a textbook example of military service pressures that have driven the growth in recent years of the defense budget, which has more than doubled since 2001. The 2009 total of $513 billion -- not including special Iraq and Afghanistan war costs -- exceeds the combined military budgets of the next 25 highest-spending nations.