Military Spending
Are you satisfied with the country you live in? If you are then why should you be, at the moment our great country is experiencing a financial crisis. The United States of America is trillions of dollars in debt. Personally I think that the biggest issue is that our government has failed to cut back on spending. One of the biggest budgets for our Government is for our Defense or Military. Through 2003 to 2009 over 50% of our government’s budget has gone towards our military (Shah). Don’t you think that this problem needs to change dramatically?

The annual global military expenditure is currently standing at a total of $1.7 trillion dollars (Shah). Did you know that the U.S.A. single handedly makes up about 39% of that budget? The next Country with the largest military budget is China and they only make up about 9.5% of the Global Military Expenditure (Shah). The United States has a larger Military budget than all of the next 15 top countries combined. The United States also doubles the budget of all the countries in Asia combined (Heeley). In 2012 the Budget for our military consisted of and outstanding $645.7 billion dollars which at the time made up 41 percent of global military spending (Heeley). Isn’t that a ridiculous?

Many allies of the United States reduce their military budget when the U.S.A. increases theirs. During the Cold War many European countries cut down on Military spending because they felt if they got involved the U.S.A. would come to their aid and fight their battles for them. Currently today that is still very true the majority of a taxpayer’s money goes overseas to fight in wars that do not involve our priorities. Wouldn’t you rather want your tax money be used for education or health? Through the years of 2003 to 2009 our country never spent a combined percentage of over 13.4% of our government’s budget on Education and Health combined (Shah). What would you rather your tax money be spent on?

Many people may argue that our military funds are mainly used for the reason of keeping peace instead of getting involved in warfare. But, did you know that the United Nations is currently in a financial crisis as well? The United Nations regularly spends about 30 billion dollars a year which makes up about 1.8% of military spending (Shah). Recently however the U.N. has been forced to cut back on spending and had only spent $348 million in 2010 (Shah). Surprisingly the United States only paid 20% of their promised money to the organization that year.

In conclusion, I think that our already powerful country needs to cut back on military spending. I personally believe that the additional funds should be used for Education and Health. With a military as powerful as ours I think that it is unlikely for another country to attack ours. If they were foolish enough to, our massive army would easily control the situation. Think about the way our taxes are spent, does something need to change?