Can't tell for sure...but this picture has me wondering if I might be leaning a little to the Left.

[Junior]

 

Its harder to see the billions wasted on unnecessary defense programs...

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/the-f-35-a-weapon-that-costs-more-than-australia/72454/

 

The F-35 is designed to be the core tactical fighter aircraft for the U.S. military, with three versions for the Air Force, Navy, and the Marine Corps. Each plane clocks in at around $90 million.

 

 

So, how many F-35s do we need?

 

100?

 

500?

 

Washington intends to buy 2,443, at a price tag of $382 billion.

 

Add in the $650 billion that the Government Accountability Office estimates is needed to operate and maintain the aircraft, and the total cost reaches a staggering $1 trillion.

In other words, we're spending more on this plane than Australia's entire GDP ($924 billion).

 

The F-35 is the most expensive defense program in history, and reveals massive cost overruns, a lack of clear strategic thought, and a culture in Washington that encourages incredible waste.

 

How much is spent on food stamps in a year? In 2011 it was around $75 billion. It is amazing to think about how many poor and hungry people could be fed for $1 trilliion. But hey, you know defense and trickle down economics and all that.

[carlfense]

How much is spent on food stamps in a year? In 2011 it was around $75 billion. It is amazing to think about how many poor and hungry people could be fed for $1 trilliion. But hey, you know defense and trickle down economics and all that.

Now there is some welcome perspective . . . the total food stamp spending in 2011 was less than the cost of a single F-35.

 

JFC.

 

Edit: and thanks knapplc for pointing out the m-b-t difference.

[Hingle McCringleberry]

 

Its harder to see the billions wasted on unnecessary defense programs...

 

http://www.theatlant...ustralia/72454/

 

The F-35 is designed to be the core tactical fighter aircraft for the U.S. military, with three versions for the Air Force, Navy, and the Marine Corps. Each plane clocks in at around $90 million.

 

 

So, how many F-35s do we need?

 

100?

 

500?

 

Washington intends to buy 2,443, at a price tag of $382 billion.

 

Add in the $650 billion that the Government Accountability Office estimates is needed to operate and maintain the aircraft, and the total cost reaches a staggering $1 trillion.

In other words, we're spending more on this plane than Australia's entire GDP ($924 billion).

 

The F-35 is the most expensive defense program in history, and reveals massive cost overruns, a lack of clear strategic thought, and a culture in Washington that encourages incredible waste.

 

How much is spent on food stamps in a year? In 2011 it was around $75 billion. It is amazing to think about how many poor and hungry people could be fed for $1 trilliion. But hey, you know defense and trickle down economics and all that.

 

 

That's what I'm getting at, I cannot fathom how much a Trillion really is. 10 years ago we didn't really talk in that size of a number now we toss it around like it's nothing, hell we've had deficits of over a Trillion. Waste on that level is beyond the scope of my mind, and I think that is why the small crap pisses us off. We could give that woman a million bucks, and it wouldn't be a rounding error in accounting for most of these project, but you can bet her face would be plastered all over the news.

[knapplc]

No, no - they're way more economical than that, carlfense. You could get nearly 200 of those planes for the cost of the Food Stamp program.

 

That's a bargain.

[carlfense]

No, no - they're way more economical than that, carlfense. You could get nearly 200 of those planes for the cost of the Food Stamp program.

 

That's a bargain.

Sigh. I need to slow down. +1

[knapplc]

I cannot fathom how much a Trillion really is.

 

This is how mind-boggling one trillion dollars is. It's the truth - check the math:

 

It would take a jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, 14 years before it reeled out one trillion one-dollar bills.

-source unknown (not me)

[Junior]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/08/08/209878158/egypt-may-not-need-fighter-jets-but-u-s-keeps-sending-them-anyway

 

Every year, the U.S. Congress appropriates more than $1 billion in military aid to Egypt. But that money never gets to Egypt. It goes to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then to a trust fund at the Treasury and, finally, out to U.S. military contractors that make the tanks and fighter jets that ultimately get sent to Egypt.

 

The U.S. started sending M1A1 Abrams tanks to Egypt in the late '80s. In all, the U.S. sent more than 1,000 tanks to Egypt since then — valued at some $3.9 billion — which Egypt maintains along with several thousand Soviet-era tanks.

 

"There's no conceivable scenario in which they'd need all those tanks short of an alien invasion," Shana Marshall of the Institute of Middle East Studies at George Washington University, told me.

 

A thousand tanks would be helpful for large land battles, but not for the threats facing Egypt today, such as terrorism and border security in the Sinai Peninsula, according to Robert Springborg, an expert on the Egyptian military at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. In fact, he said, at least 200 of the tanks the U.S. has sent to Egypt have never been used.

 

"They are crated up and then they sit in deep storage, and that's where they remain," he told me.

 

The story with F-16 fighter jets is similar. Since 1980, we've sent Egypt 221 fighter jets, valued at $8 billion. "Our American military advisers in Cairo have for many years been advising against further acquisitions of F-16s," Springborg said. Egypt already has more F-16s than it needs, he said.