2009 Defense Budget

I have chosen to summarize the article The Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget by Winslow T. Wheeler from CounterPunch: "America's Best Political Newsletter". The article talks about the 2009 defense budget that was just released. He talks about how unclear all of it is because most of the numbers being released are incomplete or inaccurate. George Bush's budget as shown by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says that the pentagon request is $515.4 billion. Wheeler goes on to say that this is incomplete because it does not include the $70 billion requested for the wars. This number keeps on becoming more inaccurate when we take into consideration that the $70 billion won't get us through the entire year of the war in Iraq, meaning the number should be tripled. Other factors that contribute to this substational amount that seems to keep becoming more unclear is the amount The Department of Energy has requested, the miscellaneous defense costs Bush did not include in the released amount, security costs, veteran affairs, etc. As you can see the amount for the 2009 defense budget keeps growing, and there will be many numbers thrown out in articles but very few will be accurate.

To me politics hasn't been an interest of mine at all until recently and I feel that this article contributes to that and is worth reading because it made me see how much money is being spent by the government, which in turn more than we would like will come from our taxes. Also it kind of shows how bad this huge budget is getting considering our economy is clearly going into a recession and that our debt is far worse than it has been in a long time or ever!