DUMMERSTON — Tom Buchanan's excellent piece is a good history of recent U.S. wars that never foresees a future ending.
He states, “This year alone, the United States will funnel more than $600 billion to our military.” That figure is, in actuality, what is commonly advertised and well-known as the U.S. military budget, but it is very deceptive and does not in any way reflect the true cost of U.S. war-making.
Through the decades, the U.S. government has juggled categories and financial allocations in different ways each year to make the military budget appear as small as possible.
For instance, although approximately one half of NASA's yearly allocation funds military activities, that figure is not reflected in the official version of the U.S. military budget. Neither is interest on the national debt. (If we did not have such a voraciously hungry Pentagon and war-supporting institutions, there would be no national debt.)
The deception goes on and on.
The War Resisters League is my source for the true cost of war in dollars. For fiscal year 2015, this cost is $1.3 trillion. That's 45 percent of the U.S. federal budget and 45 percent of hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
To get some idea of how much money that actually is, go back 3,581 years. (That is 825 years before the Old Testament prophet Isaiah began his ministry. Isaiah had a lot to say about justice, war-making, and individual responsibility.)
If one were to spend $1 million each day from then until the present day, that $1.3 trillion sum is the actual cost of U.S. warmaking for just one year.
How many blankets would that buy for the Brattleboro Overflow Shelter? Don't worry about funding a new police station and fire department. New paving to prevent suspension-shattering potholes? Having your teeth fixed without spending a fortune or becoming a toothless person at age 30? Done deal.
Let's just do something about our national economic priorities. I recall “guns vs. butter” in early economics textbooks. That amazingly simple concept: if we spend too much on war, there isn't going to be enough money to care for the citizens.
That's where we're at now.
It seems to be difficult, though, for many to see the correlation between national priorities and local needs.
I have one suggestion that might not reduce the military budget significantly, but does wonders for the conscience: Don't pay for war. We citizens are their major source of income.