Military spending is the biggest waste of federal tax dollars ever. Both political parties are equally complicit. The militarism scam is the best-kept secret in American politics.
When you think about it — but no one in the halls of Congress ever does — it's hard to think of a country that has less to fear than the United States. Two vast oceans eliminate our vulnerability to attack, except by countries with sophisticated long-range ballistic missiles (five out of 206 nations). We share long borders with two nations that we count as close allies and trading partners.
Historically, the U.S. has only faced an invasion once, by the British during the War of 1812. Objectively, we have little to worry about beside terrorism — and that's a job for domestic police and intelligence agencies, not the military. Yet a whopping 54 percent of discretionary federal spending goes to the Pentagon. The Bush administration put the Afghanistan and Iraq wars "off the books" of the Pentagon budget. And that's not counting interest on debt or benefits paid out for old wars. We're still paying $5 billion a year for World War II. We're still paying off beneficiaries for the Civil War and the Spanish-American War!