US defense spending bringing down an empire

From RT.

With US debt skyrocketing to $13.5 trillion, the rallying cry from Washington is to cut spending. But many politicians refuse to address defense spending.
Defense spending accounts for 58 percent of the discretionary pie, more than a trillion dollars a year all-in, or almost half of what the entire rest of the world spends combined.
With the US relying on countries like China to fund its wars and military bases around the world, even members of the Washington establishment are saying the US is bringing on its own demise as an imperial power through excessive spending it can no longer afford.

Scarcely Surprising Correlation

From Kushmonster

Have a look at those charts.

Ron Paul And Barney Frank: Why We Must Reduce Military Spending

From The Huffington Post

As members of opposing political parties, we disagree on a number of important issues. But we must not allow honest disagreement over some issues to interfere with our ability to work together when we do agree.

By far the single most important of these is our current initiative to include substantial reductions in the projected level of American military spending as part of future deficit reduction efforts. For decades, the subject of military expenditures has been glaringly absent from public debate. Yet the Pentagon budget for 2010 is $693 billion -- more than all other discretionary spending programs combined...

Call the Politburo, We're in Trouble

From Cryptogon and Asia Times.

...Even when, after years of astronomical growth, Gates began to talk about cost-cutting at the Pentagon, it was in the service of the reallocation of ever-more money to war-fighting. Here was how the New York Times summed up what reduction actually meant for America’s ultimate super-sized institution in tough times: “Current budget plans project growth of only 1 percent in the Pentagon budget, after inflation, over the next five years.” Only 1% growth – at a time when state budgets, for instance, are being slashed to the bone. Like the Soviet military, the Pentagon, in other words, is planning to remain obese whatever else goes down.
Meanwhile, the “anti-war” president has been overseeing the expansion of the new normal on many fronts, including the expanding size of the army itself. In fact, when it comes to the “war on terror” – even with the name now in disuse – the profligacy can still take your breath away....