Why Does Obama Want to Spend $8 Trillion on Defense in the Next Decade?

policyshop.net — Washington is in a fiscal panic, yet surprisingly few people are asking an obvious question: Why in the world is the Obama Administration proposing to spend $8 trillion on security over the next decade? Included in that giant sum is not just Pentagon spending, but also outlays for intelligence, homeland security, foreign aid, and diplomacy abroad. If the Administration gets its way, security spending would account for a fifth of all government outlays over the next decade. Such spending would be roughly twice as great as all non-mandatory spending through 2022 -- a category that includes everything from NASA to Pell Grants to national parks. That's a whole lot of defense for a country that, as of 2014 (when U.S. forces withdraw from Afghanistan), will be officially at peace and faces no major global adversaries.

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