U.S. War Spending in Cartograms
By Jonathan Haeber
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The decaying hull of a Titan I missile complex. The development costs - just to get these bases up and running - ran over 11 trillion inflation-adjusted dollars, more than ten times what the Iraq war is expected to cost. Despite their high costs, not a single Titan I missile was launched in the defense of this country.
Military sites abound in California. It’s fortunate for me because I literally have a lifetime of beautiful rusting landscapes within a few dozen miles. But it’s truly unfortunate for the country, and especially the parts of the country that bear the burden of a bloated military budget.
Earlier, I may not have quite articulated myself properly when I mentioned, as an aside, that U.S. military spending is — for lack of a better term — obscene. Of course, I’m not saying this just to opine. It’s a fact. Japan, the second largest military spender, tosses in a pittance 1/9th of our budget.
In the process of looking for evidence, I found the perfect illustrations for such an assertion. Behold! Cartograms of world military spending, broken down both by arms sales and total dollar amounts. It all makes one feel warm and fuzzy inside, believe me.
Cartogram of World Exports of Weapons by Country (courtesy: worldmapper.org)
Total War Spending in Real Dollars (courtesy: worldmapper.org)
Isn’t GDP the Proper Way to Look at Military Spending?
Granted, there is a large contingent that believes GDP is the proper way to look at military budgets. I concede, it may perhaps be so, but only if you were looking at how military spending may bleed the overall economy. Citing military spending as a percent of GDP tells you nothing of how it affects the average taxpayer. In order to understand how much we lowly taxpayers unwittingly cough up towards military spending, you need to look at it as a percent of of the federal budget.
So how does the U.S. compare on that measure? In 2008, around 51% of our income taxes go toward war. So last year, I personally contributed nearly $2,000 to fund the production of nuclear bombs and the continued deaths of over 250,000 Iraqi civilians and counting…
Military Spending as a Percentage of Income Tax, 2004 (source fcnl.org)
To be honest, I don’t feel too good about that, but if I don’t put my money towards killing people, I go to jail or lose my home. And no matter who the next president may be, I don’t think they’re going to allow a $2,000 above-the-line deduction for conscientious objectors.
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May 12th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Right on. I didn’t realize that much % of our taxes went towards defense spending… pretty sickening. Isn’t Federal Income Tax basically unconstitutional anyway? I’ve heard of a guy trying to prove that for years now but he hasn’t found a judge willing to hear the case.
But anyway, as I see it looking at the defense budget as a % of GDP only tells how much the economy relies on that segment of government spending, to get a sense of US hegemony you need to look at the real $ spent as you’ve presented here
May 12th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Thanks Aaron for the words. I do recall someone going to supreme court of income taxes. In fact, there was a documentary film that covered this very thing. I believe the documentary was “Maxed Out,” but I could be wrong…
May 13th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Aaron,
Mr. Haeber is lying about the U.S. spending 51% of income taxes on war. Reality is that about 1/2 of government expenditures go to welfare, social security, medicare, and other social programs, while about 1/5 goes to national defense. Here’s a link to the real data:
http://www.cbpp.org/4-10-07tax2.htm
May 13th, 2008 at 9:02 am
He’s probably drawing from a more accurate gauge. As far as I understand a large portion of the social security surplus goes into war spending, so to say that the money is going into social programs is an outright lie in and of itself, William.
May 13th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Upon re-reading the entry, he doesn’t mention anything about Social Security or Medicare. These are taken separately out of your paycheck. Assuming Mr. Haeber makes around 30K a year (according to what he states as his “portion” towards war spending), then the $2,000 he cited would support that assertion. I don’t think he’s including cuts for social security/medicare/medicaid. Income tax is deducted separately from peoples’ paychecks.
May 13th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Al,
I’m looking at the federal budget. If the author is trying to mislead us by making statements about how much income tax goes to the war, then he is being deceptive.
The numbers given on the website I posted indicate actual amounts spent, so I would have to assume that any diversion from one area of the budget to another is already included.
May 13th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
In the article: “In 2008, around 51% of our INCOME TAXES go toward war.” Nowhere do I say it in terms of percent of federal budget. The statistic I cited was specifically related to income tax.
You even stated yourself in your first comment that I “[was] lying that 51% of income taxes go towards war,” which is completely false. You change your tune quite a bit.
I personally think you are being deceptive by saying that the government spends go towards “welfare, Social Security, Medicare.” Welfare barely exists anymore thanks to Reagan, and Social Security is being robbed by the war machine — even Medicare isn’t keeping up with health care costs and inflation.
May 14th, 2008 at 4:51 am
I independently checked and believe the ~51% of income taxes to be accurate. The figure is interesting to me only to determine one’s personal contribution to death & mayhem oops I mean Homeland Security. The personal contribution to the total amount spent will of course be less. Most of the money spent was likely created from thin air by the Fed anyway, just look at the deficit… of course that is just a “hidden tax” anyway since it’s what causes inflation in the 1st place. I also feel that if you take the main point of the article as a comparison of $ amount spent by different countries as I did, the ratio of US war spending to the total US budget is really only a side point anyway.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
With the national debt creeping toward $10T, I think it might be more reasonable to assume that whatever portion of our 2008 income tax is attributable to military spending is still paying for the production arms involved in Vietname….or maybe Korea? We don’t need to sweat paying for the current war, that’s our great-grandchildren’s problem.