Secret Pentagon Funding Near All-Time High

I suspect alot of this money is going to unmanned weapon systems.
Which scare the crap out of me.
It will be too easy to use these systems i fear.
Causeing more wars in the future and who knows maybe even use against the public.
It's the terminator folks!

Funny the news tells us that the US and the rest of us is on the brink of a world recession, and yet they still spend money on this stuff why?

I'd bet most of the existing spy stuff is still top rated, B2 is still new so what is it all for?

The conspiracy nut in me thinks they are rushing to bring something out? the TR3B mabey? or maybe its like Deep Impact they are working to a deadline to produce a space craft and big deep bunker for 2012.

Whatever its for, its probably money which should be redirected for healthcare for all

Originally posted by ALightinDarkness
To those who think a $34 billion dollar line item is somehow "robbing us" and isn't actually being used - I couldn't stop laughing. 34 billion is a insignificant blip in the overall US budget, the government could spend more than that per year by going up 1 size on office paperclips.

The dollar amounts involved are staggering. Here's a handy table summarizing the 2008, 2009 federal budgets.

Granted, $34B is only just over 3% of FY2009 total discretionary spending (discretionary, not overall!), but to put it in perspective, it's about twice the NASA budget.

reply to post by Ian McLean


My point was that its nothing compared to the overall (not just discretionary) budget - but even as a percentage of discretionary, its still incredibly small.

If someone were just stealing the money, as some people have claimed, there would be far better ways to do it that wouldn't draw this sort of attention. Labeling budget spending as classified is always known to draw the fire of the media.

reply to post by ALightinDarkness

Were that it were only 34 billion, there is report from 2003 by Michael Salla outlinining estimated Black Budget for the CIA -- coming from HUD and other agencies -- at over a Trillion dollars. I know it sounds excessesive, and we can go back on forth on Salla, but it is a scholarly paper and he is seemingly connecting the dots from money that 'goes missing' out of designated budgets. I will highlight some text and then link to the paper because I dont think you can have this convo w/o throwing it into the mix for consideration.

The systematic accounting problems experienced by HUD and other agencies points to the existence of an unofficial black budget of up one trillion dollars annually. The size of the black budget and the CIA activities used to generate funds for it, point to a vast secret network of projects that is funded outside of the normal Congressional appropriation process. Consequently, what follows is a discussion of some of the primary conclusions that can be drawn and arguments made concerning the CIA’s ‘unofficial’ black budget and the Manhattan II project it has been argued to fund.

www.shadowstats.com...

32 billion dollars does not even begin to fund the types of programs and technology that is constantly alluded to around here as being par for the course.


[edit on 22-6-2008 by TheWayISeeIt]

While I respect your decision, I couldn't disagree with you more. Some people such as yourself think that 34 billion is a drop in the bucket. I personally, think its more money then I'll every see. You see, its all about perspective. Lets break this down more.

In my previous post, I broke down the billions to ruffly $122 american per year, for these black ops projects. Lets take a look at the whole industrial complex.

We just signed our 2nd budget increase to fund war in Iraq. The 2 total combined exceed 400 billion. On top of this the Military has a 500 billion year budget. That means for this year alone, we have spent 900 Billion on War, war preparedness, or moving to war. there are 280 million american people. Thats ruffly every man, woman, and child. This translates for war alone the american people spent $3200 for war this year(ruffly) each. Now then, you might not think this is much, but lets take a look at what the average american makes.

en.wikipedia.org...

This basically is $32,000. Link provided above shows this. What this means is that for this year alone, the average american citizen just spent 10% of his income on commiting for, preparing for, or moving toward war.

Lets turn this around, instead of 10% of your income going towards war, lets change it to adult diapers. Seriously, cause what your going to accomplish with war, is exactly the same as what your going to put in that diaper.

In my opinion, we have a nuclear deterent, we don't need 5000 nuclear warheads capable of destroying the entire world. we can get away with 50. Lets face it, if we are going to war, and people are going lob nukes, everybody is going to lose. Thats the point of a nuclear war.

That should save Billions, lets implement the the ideas I listed above, lets take our 1.5 million military, down to 250,000. Lets withdraw from NATO, Russia is no longer a threat that we made it out to be. I got an idea, instead of having NATO, which is an outdate military organization, disolve it, and let the EU do what it wants. There people have a right to do what they want, just like we have a right to do what we want. If I was the EU, instead of pissing Russia off, how about inviting them in?

You say, well, thats not going to save 100 billion dollars, you know your right, but if we shut down all american bases, embassies, removed the MASSIVE footprint that we have made on the world, we as a people would be alot better off.

Additionally, How about congress doing its job, and actually controlling the purse strings, and the WAR! It really pisses me off to think that BUSH is dictating to congress whether we are going to stay at war or not, ITS TOTAL B.S. The EXECUTIVE BRANCH DOESN'T HAVE WAR DECLARING POWERS! THE EXECTUVE BRANCH DOESN'T HAVE BUDGETARY POWERS. THe never have, its congress that does, and you know what, its the issue of them not having a set of nuts out of the 1000 people in congress.

They're supposed to do what the will of the AMERICAN PEOPLE is, and you know what, THAT WILL by a 80% margin, is to dump Iraq, leave them the hell alone. In my opnion, what congress and the executive branch are doing is nothing less the TREASON.

K, I'm done with my rant, you know what though, it really just annoys me, when people say, its only X billion here, or its only X billion there. Do you have a Billion do that? If not, don't make a decision for others by spending there money for them, cause thats exactly what your doing, comprising with a system to steals anothers money, and that my friend is what we went to Revolution in the first place.

I'm sorry if I'm coming across as baligerent to you, I respect your thoughts, and find that you have put thought into your words, unfortunately, I very much do not agree with them. I wish you luck in discussing this though, and very much look forward to what you have to say.

Cheers,

Camain

reply to post by TheWayISeeIt


Sorry, but "shadow government statistics" is known to be a place that says things which just are not true. I have looked at some of their work before, and they often just lie in order to fit a conspiracy agenda. I have had the displeasure to help put together programmatic government budgets. The accounting is so meticulous it often prevents the programs from doing the jobs they were legislated to do.

Oh, and to the guy above: defense spending does not equal government black ops, nor is it spending used to go to war. Military infrastructure cost money, even when we're not at war. You have to understand the size of governments budgets. A billion is nothing to the government. Nor are tens of billions. Hundreds of billions - then you may be at a notable level.

[edit on 22-6-2008 by ALightinDarkness]

reply to post by TheWayISeeIt


Fascinating! I missed that in my debate research. As you mention, Salla is very disputable as a 'reliable source', but his paper has 107 endnotes, many referencing USC sections, Inspector General and auditors reports, the Congressional Record, etc. A valuable resource nonetheless.

Link to the paper you quoted:
The Black Budget Report: An Investigation into the CIA’s ‘Black Budget’ and the Second Manhattan Project

reply to post by Ian McLean

Hey Ian -- Thanks for not raking me over the coals by bringing Salla & Co. into the mix and noting the meticulous footnotes. I think that alone merits the paper being considered. Where there is smoke...




[edit on 22-6-2008 by TheWayISeeIt]

reply to post by camain


Sorry to be so funny but I have. On slot machines. never know what the outcome will be.