This is a joke. I honestly am blown away at how much money we are willing to spend on our military. I guess it's providing employment opportunities... But if we cut back military spending to a mere $100 billion/year, our economy would be absolutely incredible. If even 1% of that money was being used to develop next gen batteries and ultracapacitors and build factories to make them, it's amazing what we could do. Pretty much Japan, China, and Korea are using the US for our military to umbrella them while at the same time screwing us over economically, centrally planning the take over of all of our markets.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/06/gates.budget.cuts/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a 2010 Pentagon budget Monday that reflects major changes in the "scope and significance" of Defense Department priorities.

One of the high-profile programs on the chopping block is the Air Force's most expensive fighter, the F-22 Raptor.

Three key priorities are reflected in the changes, Gates said.

The priorities include a stronger institutional commitment to the military's all-volunteer force, a decision to "rebalance" defense programs to better fight current and future conflicts, and "fundamental overhauls" of the military's procurement, acquisition and contracting process.

Among other things, Gates called for production of the Air Force's most expensive fighter, the F-22 Raptor, to be phased out by fiscal year 2011.

He also called for terminating a proposed fleet of 23 presidential helicopters estimated to cost more than $13 billion. The proposed fleet, he noted, was originally projected to cost $6.5 billion. It "has fallen six years behind schedule and runs the risk of not delivering the requested capability," he said.

Gates maintained that a new fleet of presidential helicopters will still ultimately be necessary, however.

To help create a more mobile, flexible force, Gates proposed boosting special operations personnel by 2,800, or 5 percent, as well as purchasing aircraft designed to provide greater lift mobility and rapid transportation of those forces.

Among other things, he cited a proposed increase in the purchase of "littoral combat ships, a key capability for presence, stability and counterinsurgency operations in coastal regions" from two to three ships.

The Pentagon's ultimate goal, he said, is to acquire 55 of these ships.

He also called for an additional $500 million "to increase our capacity to field and sustain more helicopters, a capability that is in urgent demand in Afghanistan."

The proposed overall fiscal year 2010 Defense Department budget is almost $534 billion, or nearly $664 billion when including the costs of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The current Pentagon budget totals slightly over $513 billion, or almost $655 billion including the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

"This is a reform budget, reflecting lessons learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. ... [But] there's no question that a lot of these decisions will be controversial," Gates said.

He called on Congress to "rise above parochial interests and consider what is in the best interests of the nation as a whole."

Yeah but we have to keep our guard up, North Korea will soon have an ICBM the way it looks now :p

Well the F-22 finally got cut today, as did a bunch of other expensive black holes. But Gates promised MORE money for missile defense. At least the F-22 is actually functional!

Let's look at it this way, when the economy continues to tank or if peak oil become evident then we can easily put down the guns and pick up the plows.

The way things are looking, there is no way we will be able to maintain our current military size, unless other countries want to increase their amount of funding.

Our military is not all just a waste of money. The military branches have become known as the most successful venture capitalists in human history. There extreme technology needs along with huge budgets allowed for some amazing advances throughout our history. If this technology can be transferred to our civilian companies then we have new products to sell the rest of the world.

Now all we need to do is slowly transition this to more useful and less aggressive activities. We should put as much effort into our energy, education, job creation, healthcare infrastructures.

If we can kick our addiction to oil then all of this is possible. If not, we will need even more (does not even look possible without major sacrifice) to hold on to the dwindling petroleum reserves. We will really start suffering in order to drive those Hummers, pleasure yachts, using container ships to bring cheap toys from China, etc.

Hopefully, our leadership can get a good handle on where we are and where we need to go to reduce the mount of suffering we are going to face. Keeping on the continual growth economic models is going to bite us hard in the butt. If just a few of the super giants peak, it's a brave and painful world, folks.