Rep. Frank: When Bill Clinton left office the military budget was 300 billion, it's now 700 billion.

[onehandle]

From 'The Last Word,' Monday night.

[still_one]

1. It must be inflation. Oh, wait, I am told there isn't inflation. I'm confused /nt

[Blue_Tires]

2. I still remember the RW memes and e-mail forwards

about how "weak" Clinton was making our war machine...

[onehandle]

6. Same memes have been recycled with Clinton crossed out and Obama scribbled in. nt

[WI_DEM]

3. If they want to really make a dent in the budget they could end two needless wars

and cut the fat and waste at the Pentagon. It's time that the Defense budget stop being a sacred cow.

[GSLevel9]

4. What I would give for Clinton era economy right now...

[onehandle]

7. You and me, Brother. You and me. nt

[hughee99]

8. Ah yes, the good old days of deregulation, the dot.com bubble and Enron. n/t

[BeFree]

9. well

The republicans have always been with us. Hence the burps and the shits.

Case is: Deflative Defense spending via Clinton lowered the debt/deficit.
Only a republican would argue otherwise, eh?

[hughee99]

11. Are you crediting the economic boom of the 90's to lower defense spending?

Yes, keeping defense spending down was a factor, but a relatively SMALL one.

[BeFree]

12. Debt/deficit reduction was good

It was a boost to the economy, yes. Instead of building missile guidance systems private money went to build citizen computer systems. And here we are.

Are you saying it had NO impact?

[hughee99]

13. As I said above, a relatively small one.

But since we're talking about defense spending, it was roughly the same when Clinton came in as when he left, $350 billion dollars. Yes, great job to keep this spending down, but IMHO, you're grossly overestimating the impact of it if you're crediting the 90's economy to this in any significant proportion.

A far greater impact would be the financial shenanigans that companies began to engage in and the dot-com bubble where people were fighting to throw money over any internet start-up regardless of whether they'd even figured out how they were going to make money at it.

[Drunken Irishman]

16. Yup. Pets.com raised $82.5 million in an IPO only a mere 9 months before collapsing...

Hell, many people threw their money into these internet start-ups not actually knowing what the company did. In the late 90s, any idea seemed to be a good idea.

Even though many dot-coms were, in fact, awful.

[hughee99]

20. Pets.com was exactly the one I was thinking of...

If I remember right, the only real tangible asset to come out of that was the sock puppet in the commercials, and they even got sued over that.

[denem]

23. Sock puppets can never die!

Sock puppets for Ponys.

[sasha031]

5. Yes, I saw that

:(

[ProSense]

10. The wars need to end

Under even normal circumstances, the defense budget would have increased by a lot since 2000.

The most significant and uneccessary increase have are related to the two wars, reflected in the added cost of continuing them and caring for a lot of wounded soldiers. The military health systems budget has more than doubled:

<...>

The budget includes $52.5 billion for the Military Health System. The system, which has 9.6 million beneficiaries, has seen its budget more than double since fiscal 2001, when it was $19 billion.

link

President Obama reduced the war budget for 2012, but the budget still calls for $117 billion.

[polichick]

14. We have almost 800 - yep 800!! - military bases, not counting the war zones...

An eye-opening book is DISMANTLING THE EMPIRE by Chalmers Johnson - he challenges Pres. Obama to dismantle the mic.

Don't think this prez will do it.

[unhappycamper]

15. When dubya was selected, the military budget was $302 billion dollars a year.

The $700 billion dollar number cited does not include the cost if two ongoing occupations, nor the 'black' budget, nor the nuke budget.

If you lump all that crap together, we are spending one trillion dollars a year on the military. BTW, that one trillion dollars represents 58% of all discretionary funding. The interest on the National Debt is 7% of all discretionary funding.

And that's the reason LIHEAP, job training, teachers, police, firemen, and city and state budgets are all in the red. 65% is spent on useless crap.

[Badfish]

18. Are you sure ?

The $700 billion dollar number cited does not include the cost if two ongoing occupations

[ProSense]

19. The total includes funding for the wars and it's

$671 billion.

Here's the DOD release.

[Badfish]

21. Thats what I thought.

Do we really need the spin ?

[high density]

17. And now the GOP is screaming about how we must cut "entitlements"

after they ran up this huge tab with war and "defense" spending.

[bhikkhu]

22. Bush made the military a giant jobs program

, and war itself is basically a repug-approved fiscal stimulus. The problem now is that drawing down the military budget immediately effects the jobs market and GDP, and (knowing how successfully the GOP can spin that) would just wind up with bigger problems in 2012...

[Drunken Irishman]

24. So did Reagan...

Much of Reagan's spending early in his administration was in defense building.

It's the big difference between Pres. Obama's spending and that of Reagan/Bush.

[davidpdx]

25. And Republican wonder WHY we have a massive debt

It's because they ran up the charge card and then left the tab for the American taxpayer.