(Figures for 2005. It's gotten more weighted
toward military since then.)
American taxpayers expect the federal government to provide national security. Achieving that security is a constant and complicated challenge that cannot be met by military might alone. A sound national security policy involves three broad strategies:
- preventive measures such as securing nuclear materials abroad and participating in multi-lateral diplomatic and peacekeeping operations;
- homeland security such as providing port security and coordinating emergency first responders; and
- the military
Currently, federal spending on these three strategies is heavily weighted toward military operations. In fiscal year 2005, as shown in the graph, almost nine dollars was spent on the military for every dollar spent on all other non-military security tools combined.
In order to better understand how our tax dollars are spent within and beyond our borders, this section of our website offers a wealth of information about spending on the three strategies outlined above as well as related topics.
What could HOMELAND Security do with $456,278,478,000?
Other possibilities:
- If a school costs $23,000,000 to build we could build 19,838 schools without imposing additional taxes or floating a single bond issue. Communities could have these schools "free and clear" if we thought it was important.
- If health insurance premiums for a family of 4 cost $1,200 a month we could afford to provide health insurance (through the existing system of insurance industry middle-men) for 31,686,004 currently uninsured families.
- If we were really interested in returning tax dollars to the people who pay taxes instead of just the rich, we could extend a tax refund of $1,500 to every man, woman and child in the United States.
More interesting stuff:
- Here's a list of the top Arms Exporters. It takes guns to make a war.
- And here's a peek at World Military Spending in 2005. What's changed since them? It also gives some insight into who we should be afraid of and to what degree we should be fearful.
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