United States Defence Funding
“So long as nuclear weapons continue to exist, so will the temptation to threaten others with overwhelming military force” (Ikeda 1). This quote shares a great truth in which Daisaku Ikeda is expressing to this day. Countries everyday are working towards new development of nuclear weapons, building their militaries to overwhelm their enemies and friends, and growing fear in the nations of the world that one day, someone will act. Today, we all know the power of these nuclear weapons, demonstrated in situations such as the Trinity test, conducted by the United States on July 16th, 1945, Chagan, conducted by the Soviet Union on January 15th, 1965, and Operation Hurricane, conducted by the United Kingdom on October 3rd, 1952 one of the first Atomic bombs in existence. These tests were the dawn of military growth and development, something in which today is a problem, driving fear in the nations of the world who only has the solution, is to build bigger than their opponents, also known as Militarism. This is an issue currently facing the United States of America, with almost twice the size of a military compared to it’s second ranking opponent Russia in World firepower, and continuously building. “In the past 10 years, overall military spending has more than doubled”(Paul 2). Yes, twice the size of a military, but 9 times the military budget, now how does that sound, possibly depressing when you get into the money talk. The United States has many more problems it should be placing its focus on aside from building an already overwhelming military power. These things range from National Debt, the current Healthcare/Education system in place, Where all the tax money and how much is actually going into the military, and space exploration. “Cutting Military Spending Does Not Mean Cutting Defense”(Paul 2). As said by Ron Paul, a US Representative, many people are beginning to realise the defense spending issue. Some worry that cutting this budget will decrease the safety of the United States. Here will be the facts you should need to know on this budget, it’s impact on the United States as a whole, and its effect on the non militaristic part of the country, and the world. Not to mention, what this money could be used for, rather than fighting wars. Let’s get into my first topic, recognizing the numbers going into the US Military and defense, maybe people are not as affected or aware of it because they do not know the values. According to nationalpriorities.org, 53.71% of the United States federal budget discretionary funding, is put into defense and the military. Yes, that is more than half, the federal budget in 2015 was 3.8 trillion dollars, 1.11 trillion in discretionary funding. To put that into a larger scale, 21% of the US economy. Of that 1.11 trillion, 598.49 billion or once again, 53.71% is put into the military, and this is concerning for other reasons in which will be discussed later on. This is 9 times the budget of it’s military competitor. "The concerns that we've expressed about it is it advocates essentially the use of a slush fund for funding critically important national security priorities," says Secretary Josh Earnest after Obama’s Veto of the increased defence spending for 2016 proposed by congress. The American people, many seem to follow the logic of “we are not safe enough with 500+ billion defence funding” and continue to try increasing it, although there are countries in this world fighting the same wars, safe with 7 times less funding. There is much more this money can go towards aside from needless military defense, which will come up soon.

Secondly, one of the biggest current issues that the United States is facing, their National debt. The country is slowly in it’s own national debt crisis, rising by billions everyday as more money is borrowed, the current debt value, unbelievable. The United States is currently 18.8 trillion in debt, only 17 trillion more than it’s following up competitor the United Kingdom with a 1.6 trillion debt. According to an article written by The Economists based on the US National Debt, the current GDP ratio under Obama is 10%, it is expected to rise to 12% by 2025, and by 2040, 14%. The current trend in National debt is putting the country in the ground more and more by day, and a big reason for this, is the defense funding. As of now, research shows that every individual American tax payer would need to pay 154,000$ in order to simply break even. It is said that President Obama is one of the worst running presidents in history in terms of US National debt, very hypocritical as Obama did state in 2008 when he was first elected “The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion for the first 42 presidents - #43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child. That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic.“
He is now responsible for increasing the national debt by 7.4 trillion+. As for question on wether the people care about this massive debt or not, yes some do, and some fear the worst. The current debt rate is making the United States much more vulnerable to China, and it worries people, but not all think like that, the other half of Americans simply saying “Who’s going to make us pay it back” with ever growing confidence in their military power.

Thirdly, another issue involving American defense funding and federal budget, is that not enough is going into a proper healthcare system. “About 51 percent of U.S. adults say the federal government is responsible for making sure all Americans have health coverage.” Mentions an Academic article written by Allison Bell. Research done by Gallup showed that this number has gone down from 69% recorded in 2006. Now, the people supporting a government run system has peaked 41% in 2015, from a previous 35% in 2014. From this data, it shows that the people in the United States are looking for a solution to healthcare problems. Statistics done show that 31 million Americans do not have health insurance, and of those who do not, 48% of them say it is due to it being too expensive. The risk currently surrounding Americans in the health factor is just too high. The reason for the expenses required to gain health care, is due to the amount of money actually put into healthcare. Only 6% (66 billion) is put into healthcare, out of 1.11 trillion, hard to believe. Researchers at Gallop have said “People are slowly beginning to realise the crisis, and this year people who believe the government should ensure everyone has healthcare has increased to 26% from 22%.” This topic is till very controversial as many of the American tax payers remain to disagree. Although, from the big picture, the health and safety of the people you are trying to protect should prioritise much more than the arms you have in a battle, all in all, you build a military to protect them, what is protecting them from the inside.

Last but not least, space exploration, a topic known by many all over the world. Only 3% of the federal budget is found to be placed in Science, this includes Space Exploration. This is only 29.7 billion out of the big value as mentioned above. Space exploration in the eyes of many is a key focus to our future, we are simply a spec of what is in the Universe, and there is so much more to discover. This is what many other countries have realised already, those capable of space exploration use the portion of the budget they have to make it possible, yet the United States with one of the largest budgets spends so little, and so much on military. There are many great things that NASA has planned for it’s future in space exploration, sending people to Mars, Astroids, possibly someday, even other universes. Much of our REALTIME information on climate change, fresh water, and sea level information comes from NASA, using futuristic and current time technology learning more about our planet daily. A great example, NASA claims “Our telescopes also are peering into the farthest reaches of the universe and back to its earliest moments of existence, helping us understand the universe's origin, evolution, and destiny. They are working to do this, much without help from the federal budget, or the government. Although we still see the progress being made with what they have, simply imagine what they could do beyond that. Just recently, NASA has revealed “Traces of Fresh water has been found on Mars” this is a break in research and scientific discovery, and possibly a sign life may be possible, and exist on the planet. All these amazing things are being discovered with the current buget, but it could be so much more.

In conclusion, the United States is spending a lot of money, I’m sure that is noticed now. The issues at hand, is that there is too much Debt, too much money spent on defense, and not enough money on Health Care, and Space Exploration. It is not a change that can be done simply, but a change that the people need to encourage. There is so many more priorities than military when it comes to safety, and the future of the country, they just need to be realised.

Works Cited
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