and let's not even get into the opportunity costs of this foolish war...

Laffer curve! Reaanomics! Cutting taxes increases revenue!

Conservative fiscal "economics" has become a doctrine of wishful thinking. It would be funny if it were not so disastrous for so many peopel.

Let's not forget that the complicity of Congress (and indeed the complacency of the American people) was necessary to enable Bush to rack up this debt. And the guardians of the supposedly self-correcting market did nothing to discourage it either. George W. Bush is the creation of our collective stupidity and delusion in a way that not even Richard Nixon was. To borrow from the film Forbidden Planet, he is a Monster from the Id of the American people.

Sheer nonsense indeed.

I would like to see a number, even an educated guesstimate, for the percentage of military spending that is spent on U.S. soil, where the dollars go into U.S. companies and pay U.S. wages. I suspect we'll find that Bush isn't only putting the war on the credit card for the benefit of those who think killing brown people will make their nightmares go away.

"Today, we face an enemy that is not only expansionist in its aims, but has actually attacked our homeland -- and intends to do so again........"

Here we go with the Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, and Cheney neo-con

rhetoric again !!!!!!

Yet our defense budget accounts for just over 4 percent of our economy -- less than our commitment at any point during the four decades of the Cold War. This is still a large amount of money, but it is modest -- a modest fraction of our nation's wealth...." [emphasis added]

...he won't even allow the costs of the war to be included in the budget. They're always separate appropriation items...

How can he keep a straight face while talking about that 4 percent?

I don't disagree with your point but we should notice that once again he directly associates the Iraq War with 9/11. We have to stop letting him make this association. When asked directly he disavows it but the "we have to do this because they attacked us line" keeps slipping into the argument.

Camus

sheer lunacy.

these people must be stopped, there's no other reasonable conclusion.

jeebus.

Does this take into account that the actual war costs haven't been included in the budget?

From wikipedia, the 2007 military budget was $439.3 Billion:

"This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (~$9.3 billion, which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs (~$33.2 billion) or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, ~$170 billion in 2007)."

Also, comparing defense spending as a percentage of the economy is misleading. Looking at it as a percentage of the government's budget for the year, you'll see it's the #1 expenditure (once you add in war costs, it's over and above social security).

...obviously suffers from Bush Derangement Syndrome.

This is so good to see someone take the "facts" as spun by this bogus administration, and then slice and dice it in quick order with detailed comparison to the real facts, including those facts conveniently omitted from Bush's twist. Thank you Salon for bringing Mr. Benen here to War Room.

"No Politician Left Behind"...what an embarassing joker of a prez we've got, wasting the precious lives of our fellow Americans, and trashing the finances/resources we all depend upon...1/20/09 cannot get here soon enough!

Are these numbers present value? For pete’s sake, in 1951 (the height of the Korean War) the U.S. per capita income was $1,668.

In 2006 the U.S. per capita income was $36,629 – more than TEN times what it was in 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War, (when it stood at a mere $3,538).

This article is either purposefully slanted or transparently lazy. Which is it?

Wake up. If the argument is that we must stop this war because of the cost, the stats you're reporting should not be so easy to punch holes in.

This is sloppy -- start again.

Harden your metal, dig deep, and write up a bullet proof case. Then come back.

Regardless of the results produced, giving the cost of the defense budget as a percentage of GDP is of no import. 4%. 0.4%, or 40%, we still spend as much as the rest of the world put together. That's far too much sand to be pouring down this particular rathole. I'd much rather see it wasted on health care, education, fixing roads & bridges, any number of things.

....is that he writes stuff that everybody is compelled to agree with! Because he uses facts and stuff, and points out flaws in the current administration, which is what some would call "keeping your eye on the ball," and basically writes like a real progressive for a real left-leaning online publication.

Steve, if you want page-clicks, you're going to have to be more random than this.

Here's a hint: Try turning Obama supporters and Clinton supporters against each other. It's GREAT for page-views.

Weak arguments like this just make people look shrill. Adjust the numbers for inflation before climbing on the soap box. Unless, of course, you're trying to recruit the shrill and inane to your cause.

Here's another way to look at it...

The Louisiana purchase cost about $23 million for 828,000 square miles. The linked article said something about $500 billion in defense spending. That is 20,000 times $23 million. The surface of the earth, including the oceans, is about 200 million square miles. About that a third of that is land.

So, absent inflation adjustments and reality, that 500 billion is 30,000 percent the amount needed to buy the earth's land surface!

Where was he when his administration finally figured this out last month?

Those numbers are already clearly adjusted for inflation. The DoD budget in 1951/52 was 54/57B. If the comparison wasn't inflation-adjusted it wouldn't be a 14% diference, it would be 1000% diference.

How about a clarification regarding any adjustments for inflation?

Good to see the home-schooled idiots chiming in.

Do you really think that defense spending today is 14% higher than during the Korean war without accounting for inflation???

My goodness, what an idiotic criticism to make!

Keep drinking the Kool-Aid, morons.