Obama Beats Bush in Military and War Spending
Those who thought electing Barack Obama would usher in a new era of hope and change and a redirection from George Bush’s militarism and spending on overseas wars might want to look away. We wouldn’t want you to lose the pleasant illusion that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning warmonger in the White House celebrating the assassination of a foreign head of state he didn’t even kill is something other than what he claims.
Below is a graph of U.S. defense spending from 2000, the year that Bush “stole” his election, projected to the end of Obama’s term. Those on the left who are bad at math have pretty colors to illustrate that both the DOD Budget Increase and Overseas Contingency (Wars) segments have gotten fatter, meaning that we are spending more under Barack Obama, who had a Democrat-controlled House and filibuster-proof Senate for his first two years, than at any time under fellow “war criminal” George W. Bush.
Is this graph from one of those right-wing think tanks that makes up its own statistics? Not unless you count the Office of Management and Budget as an arm of the Koch Brothers.
For those numbers guys in the audience, below are National Defense Outlays since 1960, as grabbed from a U.S. Census Bureau report.
As one can see from the chart, National Defense Outlays in dollar figures and as a percentage of GDP have gone up under Obama. Unless right-wingers are conspiring with the OMB and the Census Bureau, Barack Obama owns these numbers.
So fine, we’re spending more money overseas. Perhaps President Obama is putting less troops in harm’s way? Wrong again. In 2010, President Obama sent and kept more American troops overseas than at any point under George W. Bush.
Another right-wing conspiracy? These numbers are from the Department of Defense, which is not likely to be influenced by “teabagger” money.
Maybe President Obama is spending more money on national defense, and is sending more of our troops overseas, but he has slashed Homeland Security funding? Not the case.
Even when one accounts for Department of Defense funding, President Obama’s administration is spending far and away what George W. Bush did in any year of his presidency.
The popular perception that George W. Bush was a warmonger, while Barack Obama is a peace-loving president who is simply trying to successfully end the wars he inherited from Bush, just doesn’t fly. President Obama is every bit the “warmonger” George W. Bush was, and then some.
Hate facts. Snark. Just a splash of derision.
Rogue Government 
Some of us have been wondering if anybody knew what the current World-Record for ‘Political Assassinations by Nobel Peace Prize Winners’ was…
Pardon me if I err, but from this blog I would form the opinion that you oppose a “warmonger” in the White House (with which I concur completely)… yet a perusal of your other blogs would indicate that you support Herman Cain, which seems to me at odds for anyone that would like to see an end to the said “warmongering”.
An excerpt from Herman Cain’s campaign website (I suppose that you might call this his “foreign policy”, since any such policy is not mentioned otherwise…):
“While diplomacy is a critical tool in solving the complex security issues we face, it must never compromise military might. Because we are such a free and prosperous people, we are the envy of the world. Many regimes seek to destroy us because they are threatened by our ideals, and they resent our prosperity. We must acknowledge the real and present danger that terrorist nations and organizations pose to our country’s future.
Further, we must stand by our friends and we must not be fooled by our enemies. We should never be deceived by terrorists. They only have one objective, namely, to kill all of us. We must always remain vigilant in dealing with adversaries.” http://www.hermancain.com/the-issues
Sounds quite a bit like “warmongering” to me.
Thanks – Thomas
Defending oneself by killing your violent enemies and going abroad looking for monsters to slay is not the same thing. I’m a realist, but Obama is not. For one thing, using his foreign policy as it fits his domestic agenda; namely, spending us into oblivion. He is a status quo candidate in one sense, so as not to alert lefties that he could care less if our troops are dying overseas occupying countries that will never be liberal democracies; on the other, he wants to break down authoritarian regimes and infiltrate socialist-Muslim hybrids into power, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.
Now if Cain is putting things in terms of defending our nation’s interest and ideology (hint: not socialism), then I am for that. But I am not for nation-building abroad or engineering coups or ushering in regional chaos and anarchy.
I’d like to know what the numbers are adjusted for inflation. Also, how much influence does the president have over the budget anyway — wasn’t the budget issue on the news earlier this year about how congress has yet to pass a budget?
My guess is BO doesn’t pay much attention to the military unless it helps him further his political aspirations. After all, not too many of us support his policies. What better way to pacify the military than to continue to give them what they want/need and to keep ‘em occupied? And it helps “stimulate” the economy… just sayin’. As for me, I think there is no better time to come home than the present, and we never should have initiated any nation building to begin with.