The Pentagon Budget is Only Part of the Picture

There should be much more discussion about where our scarce financial resources are being used, so I was delighted to see the missile chart below on Facebook earlier, dramatically contrasting our military budget with how much we have left to devote to a few other things, such as health, education and housing.

Created by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, it’s a useful conversation starter, but it requires much more clarification, as “Militarism & War” is narrowly defined so as to mean the Pentagon’s proposed budget. A more accurate depiction might display a missile over twice its height.

The Pentagon budget does not show the full picture of our military expenditures.

A full accounting of those expenditures must include much that is not in the Pentagon budget: veteran’s benefits, 80% of the interest on the national debt, the DOE’s nuclear weapons budget, half of NASA’s budget, significant portions of the CIA budget and parts of Homeland Security & State Department budgets, and more.

For a true picture of our military budget, take a peak at the annual War Resisters League pie chart for fiscal year 2018 down below. You can find the War Resisters League online here.