Chile Forum

For the record:

(1) How did senator Obama vote for the Patriot Act?
(2) Did he not just grant its extension after saying he was against it on the campaign trail?

A tool like all the other Demopublican, Republicrat dweebs and all that believe the MSM division crap.

Same sh*t, different president. It's all the same. Ruby Ridge? Waco? People talking about Congress giving the alphabet soup agencies powers that they have already used without anyone stopping them....why are we sweating these small details when the truth of the matter is that the government has already gunned down little boy running away from their camo clad agents, has already murdered a mother while she was nursing her baby, and they already incinerated little kids who did nothing accept have parents who didn't believe in government approved thoughts.

Who cares about giving these idiots powers, they have already taken them and they are already using them.

http://www.ronpaul.com/2010-04-14/elect ... n-paul-41/

-That's a big statement, considering that anyone who's read his #1 New York Times Bestseller THE REVOLUTION
or the more recent END THE FED has had a clear and concise exposure to the essence of what this thread is about.

Incidentally, tonight's Senate vote will also address Paul's efforts to audit the Fed. See more at:

http://www.ronpaul.com/

Tonight, the Senate will “test” vote on Chris Dodd’s financial reform bill. As Alan Grayson points out below, and Ron Paul alerted supporters a few weeks ago, the Senate bill completely eliminates legislation to audit the Federal Reserve, which already passed in the House

Anyone see a problem???
Anyone delusional enough to predict a "happy ending" here... (NOT!)
Rampant militarism and imperialism = RIP

Greg Judy:

Your stats are very selective and quite misleading. Try http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258 for a more complete picture. Look at total federal spending, as opposed to simply discetionary spending, and the you will see that Social Security, Interest on the Debt (which will get much higher in the near future), Healthcare and Other Social Spending are each roughly as large as the military budget....in short, 80% or so of federal spending is used to make sure fewer people have to pay for things themselves. 20% of the problem (at most) at the federal level is our "militarism and imperialism", the other 80% is "want goodies on someone else's nickel". The picture becomes even more skewed if we include state & local spending, only a very tiny percentage of which is devoted to killing people who need killing. Bottom line: Much more than 80% of tax dollars in US go to non-military ends.

John Hyre, Big Fan Of That Part of the Budget Which Is Devoted to Killing (or at least maiming) Certain Unpleasant Foreigners

Your stats are very selective and quite misleading

Yep... that's the way stats work

Try http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=1258 for a more complete picture

OK...Center on Budget and Policy Priorities...
Hmmm... non-profit, eh... wonder who "pays" these guys/girls... ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_on_Budget_and_Policy_Priorities

You showed me yours... I'll show you mine...
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/

National Priorities Project analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand and influence how their tax dollars are spent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Priorities_Project

No worries JH... we are all entitled to believe whichever lies, damn lies and statistics we want

BTW...

...only a very tiny percentage of which is devoted to killing people who need killing.

That's kinda perverse... who decides "who needs killing"
(Oooops... rhetorical question... anyone, even citizens, at the discretion of the Executive... (i.e. Congress and the Constitution be damned)

Whatever... no need to niggle over a few stats and percentages either way... the final acts of imperialistic over-reach are being played out on the stage... and the Grim Reaper is waiting patiently in the wings... as he has with ALL empires, throughout history.

Found my source on a quick google search. It is in accord with various others I have seen on the same metric, so no need to question it on my part. The issue isn't that your stats are "wrong" per se, I think they do accurately reflect discretionary spending. The flaw is that your stat only shows discretionary spending, which is a small part of the total federal budget (ie - discretionary + "non-discretionary" items such as social security, etc). I showed the entire budget, which gives a literally complete picture of spending, as compared to your incomplete picture. In short:

1) You are looking at only a small part of the budget ("discretionary" part) to make your point. I could use a similar method to look at "all federal non-military spending" and say that we spend zero on the military. Misleading either way, as much is excluded from either of those stats.

2) Who came up with my stat is irrelevant unless you can show that other comparable stats are different - then who made the stat becomes relevant in deciding which one is skewed which way, etc. In this case, we are not using comparable stats or comparing apples to apples, so the "who made it" question is irrelevant for the moment.

I find the focus on "author's motive" as opposed to "substance of the stat" interesting. Basically implying that such-n-such is a poopyhead (your poopyhead vs. my poopyhead, etc.) instead of addressing the substance. Instead of defending your intrinsically incomplete stat, see if you can find a picture of the whole federal budget that differs from the one that I presented. If you want to persuade others that the US taxpayer spends most of his money on warmongering and imperialism, using a small & selective piece of the budget to illustrate will not do it. Because there are lies, big godamm lies and then stats, one is always mindful of what is behind the curtain. That's why I looked behind yours, feel free to see mine.....once we are comparing apples to apples.

John Hyre, Always Skeptical of Stats

Iraq and Afghanistan were largely funded through supplementary spending bills outside the Federal Budget, so they are not included in the military budget figures. Also, the Pentagon has access to black budget military spending(that has always been around and is easy to hide) for special programs which is not listed as Federal spending and is not included in published military spending figures. Starting in the fiscal year 2010 budget however, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are categorized as "Overseas Contingency Operations" and included in the budget. Because of that, you will see the "real" spending. (At least, more of it). Bush never included war spending in the budget, instead the supplementary bills were passed. And anyone that didn't vote for them didn't "support the troops". Maybe this is a small thing but I want to see the budget affects of the war. Of course, this is being played as new deficits by the current administration. I know we spend too much on "defense" and wars but let's hide less of the spending

By the end of 2008, the U.S. had spent approximately $900 billion in direct costs on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Indirect costs such as interest on the additional debt and incremental costs of caring for the more than 33,000 wounded borne by the Veterans Administration are additional. Some experts estimate these indirect costs will eventually exceed the direct costs. It seems correct to me since many troops that would have died in Vietnam now come back with major long term injuries-especially brain injuries.

There are many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup, and production, which is in the Department of Energy budget, Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department's payments in pensions to military retirees and widows and their families, interest on debt incurred in past wars, or State Department financing of foreign arms sales and militarily-related development assistance. Neither does it include defense spending that is not military in nature, such as the Department of Homeland Security, counter-terrorism spending by the FBI, and intelligence-gathering spending by NASA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_b ... ted_States

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05 ... 0-billion/

Laura,

Fair 'nuff. Complete is complete. Couple of thoughts:

1) Given the sheer size of the budget, I think that your points will tweak actual "military" percentages up a few points, but not to anything even approaching the levels displayed in the discretionary spending graph.

2) We'd have to examine the numbers I posted to see what is in "military" portion and what is elsewhere but at least arguably belongs in the "military" portion, such as VA costs, etc. I have not looked closely enough at the stat to know what goes into each category with that kind of precision.

3) Black budget strikes me as small by nature (in comparison to conventional) and not necessarily included outside of existing "military" category. Really impossible to quantify.

4) If we start comparing who made the data (your poopyhead vs. my poopyhead), I would not be a big fan wikipedia for any deep info. It's a great resource for a "quick clue", though on political issues, I think it trends left. The latter opinion surely comes as a shock to all.

John Hyre, Ever Skeptical

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/ ... r/1222306/

Pretty much says it all.

John Hyre, Does My Big Butt Make My Butt Look Big?