Why Can't Our Harvard MBA President Pay for His War With 500 Billion Dollars?

What many Americans don't realize is the huge increase in defense spending that has taken place over the last decade, and especially during the term of the Bush Administration. In 1996 military spending by the United States, according to information provided by the Congressional Budget Office, was 266 billion dollars. For fiscal year 2008, even without funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the defense budget will be over $500 billion dollars.

Most of this increase has come since September 11, 2001. From fiscal year 1996 to fiscal year 2001, the defense budget went up by 40 billion dollars. From fiscal year 2001 to the present, it has gone up almost 300 billion dollars. No matter how you look at it, that's a lot of money.

What has to be kept in mind is how much money we spend compared to the rest of the world. The following is from the website called Global Issues and concerns 2005:

The US military spending was almost two-fifths of the total.
The US military spending was almost 7 times larger than the Chinese budget, the second largest spender.
The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion.
It was more than the combined spending of the next 14 nations.
The United States and its close allies accounted for some two thirds to three-quarters of all military spending, depending on who you count as close allies (typically NATO countries, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and South Korea)
The six potential “enemies,” Russia, and China together spent $139 billion, 30% of the U.S. military budget.

Now, Bush is telling the Congress and the American public that he needs an additional 140 billion to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Why? Why does he need the additional money on top of the 500 billion or so that Congress has given him for defense for fiscal year 2008?

One of the reasons that was given for electing Bush president in 2000 was that he would be America's "First MBA President." Well, here's our suggestion: take that ballyhooed Harvard MBA and come up with a way to pay for his war out of the 500 billion dollars that the Democratic Congress has already given him.