What is the True Cost of Freedom?

The world’s annual budget on defense spending came to roughly $1.1 trillion in 2011. The United States spent 56% of the global budget for national defense. This comes to a total of more than $693 billion spent every year on wars, national defense, homeland security, and the national military. China ranks second spending 7.3% of the global budget, a number that comes to $76 billion. When you consider that the United States only makes up 4.4% of the global population, the amount that the United States spends on defense is quite outrageous. If China, a country that currently takes up 19.16% of the global population spends $617 billion less than the United States, what justifications could the United States possibly have for such outrageous spending? When the United States are currently facing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, the first place that the nation should look to decrease our debt and increase our surplus should be to trim the fat from the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.

Politicians on all sides of the political spectrum have been staunchly opposed to any sort of talks that might lead to a cut for the Department of Defense. Even when the “Super Committee” that was formed last summer was told to make cuts or the Department of Defense would be the first place to see these cuts, politicians refused to make any secessions. They then voiced the fact that there would be no cuts to the Department of Defense. This seems to be the only place that politicians can agree, the DOD will not be cut or even forced to slow its spending. The Department of Defense has seen great increases in its budget annually since the days of the Cold War. The increases that the United States approved in the past sixty years all have great justifications as to why these increases have been needed.

The Cold War has been a huge factor as to why the United States needed a large military and why the Department of Defense needed to grow and consume more and more of the US budget. After the end of World War II, the United States was labeled as a global superpower and almost every move the United States made during this time was in direct response to the Soviet Union. The Korean War was the faceoff of the United States and the United Nations against countries under the influence of the communism that was spread by the Soviet Union. The United States was able to step in and influence this war. President Eisenhower even threatened China with our own nuclear weapons in order to bring about an end to the war. The military continued to grow and expand during the Vietnam War, another effort by the United States to stop the spread of communism. The Persian Gulf War required yet again more military growth and even more of the United States’ budget to be spent on wars against communism.  The Cold War was a time that the United States took a stand against communism. This was a time for the US to intervene in other country’s problems and spread democracy to the less fortunate. This was a time for the US to rid the world of terrible dictators. This was a time for the US to ease the suffering of many people in dire situations created by evil communists.

In the past ten years, the United States’ Department of Defense budget has grown at an exponential rate. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States began its War on Terror. President Bush authorized Operation Enduring Freedom for the invasion of Afghanistan to rid the country of the Taliban. He also authorized Operation Iraqi Freedom that freed the Iraqi people from the clutches of Saddam Hussein. Whether the original reasoning of finding Weapons of Mass Destruction was pure fiction from the President or not, the new directive was to create democracy and spread freedom. The United States soon had concrete evidence of numerous human rights violations and had the duty to rid the country of Hussein and create freedom. Since military occupation has been required by the United States in order to insure that democracy prevailed, the United States has spent over $800 billion on the War in Iraq from 2003 to the present day.

The Department of Homeland Security has also been forced to continue to increase its budget in the past ten years in light of the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington DC. For the fiscal year of 2012, the United States has budgeted $432 billion for the Department of Homeland Security. In order to assure safety to all citizens and prevent another such tragedy from occurring, border security became a top priority. Before 2001, there was not much thought given to border security, and therefore not as much money was required to be spent on it. Since 2001, border security now requires money to be spent not only on controlling illegal immigration, but also watching for potential threats. This strengthened watch has also led to a renewal of the War on Drugs. With the Patriot Act signed by President Bush in 2001, citizens surrendered more of their rights as more of their tax dollars were spent on national safety. The United States gave itself the power to detain potential threats to the nation for an indefinite amount of time. Guantanamo Bay was created as a haven for the United States to “interrogate” such potential targets. In their fear of another attack, US politicians stripped away many rights of citizens. Tax dollars that could have been put into schools and the future of the country were turned against the citizens.

National Defense makes up 22.53% of the United States’ budget. In 2012, the US has budgeted $553 billion for the entire Department of Defense. Veterans’ benefits, something that anyone serving in the military will receive, make up an additional 3.26% of the budget. The United States are suffering a crisis, the likes of which has not been seen since the Great Depression. Politicians are looking for ways to not only decrease the national debt, which is now exceeding $14 trillion, but a way to stop the increase of debt. No one wants to make cuts. No one wants to lose the security provided by the military, the retirement provided by Social Security, the help from unemployment compensation, the healthcare provided by Medicare. If something isn’t cut soon, the country runs the risk of losing all of the benefits it has grown accustomed to.

The military can be reduced. If the United States were to withdraw completely from other countries, trillions of dollars would be saved. Due to the fact that the military occupies places like South Korea in order to prevent a nuclear war, this will not happen any time soon. The personnel that are stationed outside the country can be greatly reduced. If the United States were to focus more than 0.84% of its budget on technology programs, there could be huge advances for society. Less people would be required to do the same amount of work. If the United States were to avoid all wars, it would not require such an expansive military. The United States military could cut its military in half and still function if only there was a bit of reorganization. If the United States were to work and cooperate more with the European Union, it would be able to scale back the Navy and share the burden of patrolling the oceans with other countries. 

The United States has been telling itself for hundreds of years that it has a manifest destiny. Part of being an American is spreading freedom and democracy to the rest of the world. If the United States sees communism being spread, it is their job to step in and right things. Trillions of dollars have been spent in the past fifty years on the basis that the US has to stop the spread of communism. What gives the United States the right to step in and tell another country that their beliefs are wrong? Especially when the United States continually enters the Middle East, an area with a history that makes the United States look like a child, what makes the US right? If the United States and the politicians never stop to consider the history of this part of the world, it can never hope to make progress. The fighting and strife that the United States continually tries to put a stop to in the Middle East dates back thousands of years to the Shi’a and Sunni split. If there is any hope of the United States putting a stop to the fighting, politicians and any personnel sent over must understand the culture they are getting involved in. The United States will never be able to force democracy on any society, especially when no one ever stops to think about why there is fighting to begin with.

In the past year, politicians have been bickering like spoiled children about what needs to be cut from the budget in order to try and create a balance. Most democrats have been screaming for the need to raise taxes on the wealthiest 1% of America. With the Occupy Wall Street protests that spanned the nation for months, many citizens picked up on the cry that the wealthiest portion of Americans are being treated much better than the working man. Even with a small tax increase on the wealthiest Americans, there would still be rampant spending. If Democrats proposed to cut something as well as increase taxes, they would have more support across the aisle. Without cutting any programs, the United States will just continue to spend money it does not have. It would continue to build the debt that is eventually going to crush future generations’ hopes and dreams for a better America. 

Many Republicans have been calling for government programs such as Welfare, NASA, the EPA, and job training programs. They claim that these programs allow people to “ride the gravy train” and allows thousands of people to receive government support for free. These programs are said to encourage people to continue to stay out of work or quit looking for a job all together. These programs that are proposed to be cut do nothing for the future of our country. Politicians seem to ignore the fact that these programs take up very little of the current budget. Food and nutrition assistance programs in the United States makes up only 2.83% of the budget. NASA currently only makes up 0.45% of the budget. The EPA makes up only 0.57% of the budget, all government programs designed to protect natural resources only make up a combined 1.12% of the budget. Job training programs make up 2.77% of the US budget. If job training programs were cut, it would affect student financial aid, funds for special education, funds for public schools, and other education funds. Cutting this part of the budget is a sure way to cripple the future generations. Why not trim the national defense instead of ruining the paltry education system the United States has in place? 

Even bringing up the subject of cutting national security budget is going to cause many ruffled feathers on Capitol Hill. Politicians and citizens alike have grown used to the notion that the United States military has to be the biggest and the strongest. The United States must be the force to step in and right every wrong in the world. If the US continues in this thought process, the debt of the nation is just going to continue to grow. The military is too large for a nation this size. Some politicians jump on the idea that by scaling back the military, the military is being disbanded and the country will be open for attack. The US only needs to cut out programs that are no longer needed. Scale back the stations that are in place across the world, find more efficient ways to fight specific battles. If the military was scaled back by only 5% it would mean that there would be almost $35 billion freed up. This money could be put towards other aspects of the government to grow the economy and create a better America. This money could be put toward the $14 trillion debt that the US has created. That’s by only cutting the defense budget by 5%. This can easily be done and almost no changes would be required. If the US cut the budget by 10%, there would be $69 billion freed up. With a 10% cut, there would need to be cut backs, but it would be departments that are outdate. This would require some jobs be absorbed by current employees, but many of the jobs cut would never be missed and would not create a much heavier workload for employees. This would show that there is tremendous waste in the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.  These are cuts that would provide funds for the betterment of the entire American people while reducing debt and never decreasing the safety of the nation.

It is too easy for politicians to evade cutting programs and allowing the United States debt to grow. The easiest and least felt departments that could be overlooked have been held onto out of tradition and fear. Politicians seem to prefer demanding cuts for the less fortunate or disproportionate tax hikes for the wealthy rather than trim away real fat and change the current American mindset. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” The fear that Americans have created about losing an excessive military has not only stunted the growth of a nation, it is crippling it more and more each day.