"SHOULD CONGRESS DOWNSIZE THE U.S. MILITARY BUDGET?"
...most modern machines. Such strong army guarantees the US the highest position among countries. United States already have weapons, which could destroy the world and they still modernize it. Military spending today is higher than in 1980. In 1980 the government spent $134 billion for military and in 1988 this amount was doubled.. In 1994 President Clinton proposed to spend $264 billion (and only $54 billion to education, only $7 billion to pollution control). The military budget is nearly as large as the military budgets of all the nations of the world combined. America needs a strong army to be prepared for defense from other countries especially from former Soviet Union, whose military is very strong and contains a lot of nuclear weaponry. Such amount of dangerous arsenal can be used to initiate the nuclear war. The current atomic weapon of the US and the USSR add up to 50,000 bombs, which are equivalent to one and a half million Hiroshima bombs. The nuclear strategy for US and USSR was based on deterrence and it was only about who had more power. Even though these countries reached agreement in reducing nuclear weapon, both of them still have enough to destroy the whole life on the planet. The budget of America is mostly based on taxes. For every dollar we spend in our income taxes, 52 cents are taken for military spending and only 2 cents are reserved for education. America is on the first place in spending money for military and only on the tenth place in spending on education . The fact that the US have such strong army does not mean that the US have no problems at all. The US government should consider that every year 10,000 children die because of poverty and only 5% of 196 military budget would lift every child in need out of poverty. The unemployment is next problem of USA. According to statistics, for one billion dollars spent for military 12,000 jobs were lost. The government allocates not enough money to make growth of American education. Two hundred years ago James Madison said: ...