Hard data showing we need to cut the defense budget mightily

4 very telling statistics from Nicholas Kristof, columnist at The New York Times:

• The United States spends nearly as much on military power as every other country in the world combined, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. It says that we spend more than six times as much as the country with the next highest budget, China.

• The United States maintains troops at more than 560 bases and other sites abroad, many of them a legacy of a world war that ended 65 years ago. Do we fear that if we pull our bases from Germany, Russia might invade?

• The intelligence community is so vast that more people have “top secret” clearance than live in Washington, D.C.

• The U.S. will spend more on the war in Afghanistan this year, adjusting for inflation, than we spent on the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War combined.

My own "statistic"/hard data?  We are weakened a great deal by spending all we do on defense and the military and their contractors, instead of strengthened.  It weakens us by running up further huge debt, first, and secondly, by not spending instead on infrastructure on and for the country and on health care for our citizens as well as education.

Keep in mind, too, this is only 4 statistics--four points, telling of our situation.  There are many more points to be made about this, actually. 

At this point, we're not on a dangerous, I think, path and one that is not sustainable by a long shot.  We're draining our resources and country because of it.

Link to original post:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/opinion/26kristof.html?_r=4
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