Defense spending is infrastructure spending.

no, defense spending is defense spending.

Infrastructure, as I see it, is road improvements, bridge improvements, upgrading the power grid so it doesn't go out during storms, upgrading streetlights, etc. etc.

I'll never understand how absolutely disproportionate massive military bills have become a core-value of a supposedly right-wing party. Righties usually like their government small and their taxes even smaller.

I'm sorry, but a stimulus should be job oriented more than anything.  Military research programs are ludicrously expensive and do not generate very many jobs. 

And our military spending in general seems to actually be hurting the economy. It takes money out of the market and unnaturally shifts it towards resources for which there is not a great deal of demand.  I'm no economist, but isn't that anti-capitalistic and redistributionist?:

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/report-shows-increased-u.s.-military-spending-slows-economy/

Report Shows Increased U.S. Military Spending Slows Economy

For Immediate Release: May 1, 2007

Contact: Lynn Erskine, 202-293-5380 x115

Washington, DC: The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a report today estimating the economic impact of increased U.S. military spending comparable to the spending on the Iraq war. The report, presenting the results of a simulation from the economic forecasting company Global Insight, shows the increased level of military spending leads to fewer jobs and slower economic growth.

For the report, The Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending, by economist Dean Baker, CEPR commissioned Global Insight to run a simulation with its macroeconomic model. Global Insight's model was selected for this analysis because it is a commonly used and widely respected model. It estimated the impact of an increase in annual U.S. military spending equal to 1 percent of GDP (approximately equal to the military spending increase compared with pre-September 11th baseline).

The projections show the following:

-- After an initial demand stimulus, the effect of increased military spending turns negative around the sixth year. After 10 years of higher defense spending, there would be 464,000 fewer jobs than in the baseline scenario with lower defense spending.

-- Inflation and interest rates are considerably higher. After 5 years, the interest rate on 10-Year Treasury notes is projected to be 0.7 percentage points higher than in the baseline scenario. After 10 years, the gap would rise to 0.9 percentage points.

-- Higher interest rates lead to reduced demand in the interest-sensitive sectors of the economy. After 5 years, annual car and truck sales are projected to go down by 192,200 in the high military spending scenario. After 10 years, the drop is projected to be 323,300 and after 20 years annual sales are projected to be down 731,400.

-- Construction and manufacturing are the sectors that are projected to experience the largest shares of the job loss.

"It is often believed that wars and military spending increases are good for the economy," said Baker. "In fact, most economic models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment."

The report recommends that Congress request the Congressional Budget Office produce its own projections of the economic impact of a sustained increase in defense spending.

Here is a synopsis of a report from the House Budget Committee about how out of control our military spending has gone.  One interesting note is that we keep spending more money for less weapons as years pass when adjusted for inflation.

http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=3508&issue_id=19

House Budget Committee Holds Hearing on Sustainability of Military Budget

FCNL has long requested that the House and Senate Budget Committees hold a hearing on the military budget, which represents about 40 percent of the federal budget and has historically been given insufficient scrutiny. If the federal budget is a pie, the Pentagon gets to choose its piece first and diplomacy and all other human needs get what’s left over. The fact that the Budget Committee chose to hold this hearing now, in a time of economic uncertainty, suggests that the taboo against questioning the military budget is being lifted, giving the U.S. public an opportunity to talk about rebalancing this nation’s budget priorities.

The House Budget Committee held its hearing on the “Sustainability of Current Defense Plans” on February 4, 2009. The committee chair, John Spratt (SC), opened the hearing by stating that although defense is one of the government’s primary functions and responsibilities, the military budget must be more closely examined in a time of economic uncertainty.

Stephen Daggett, a specialist in defense policy and budgets for the Congressional Research Service, was the first to testify. Key points Daggett made include the following:

• The military budget has increased at an unprecedented rate in the past eight years.


• Projections that military will face a budget shortfall if it doesn’t receive even more funding are incorrect.


• Budget analysts expect growth in the defense budget to slow when the United States begins withdrawing troops from Iraq. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated before the House Armed Services Committee on January 27 that

  “the spigot of defense spending that opened on 9/11 is closing.”

According to Daggett, the current military budget—which has increased at a rate 20 percent higher than that of inflation since 1985—is too large for six reasons:

1. Cost of employing troops. The average cost of employing a service member is 45 percent higher in FY 2009 (after adjusting for inflation) than it was in 1998. Spending for retirement and disability benefits has increased by about $8,000 per person, but the base salary and housing allowance have also increased dramatically. According to Congressional Research Service research, average military compensation is currently more than the average civilian salary.


2. Operations and maintenance budget. This budget has grown at a rate between 2.5 and 3 percent higher than that of inflation since 1955. Much of this money is spent on operating and maintaining major weapons systems. Growing weapon stockpiles and new, higher-tech weapons are more costly to maintain. Operating and maintaining the growing number of military facilities is also a factor. According to Daggett, this increase in operating and maintenance costs is surprising, since most civilian industries have become more efficient to operate and manage.


3. Major weapons systems. Although the total number of weapons manufactured every year has decreased since 1985, the cost of each weapon has increased dramatically as weapons incorporate more sophisticated technology. For example, Navy ships currently cost between $3.5 and $4 billion each, leading the Navy to consider going back to an older model that is functional and considerably less costly.


4. Underestimated weapons costs. This problem leads to excess spending and inefficient weapons manufacturing. In 2007 the total cost of developing and manufacturing weapons was 26 percent ($295 billion) more than the Department of Defense had estimated. According to Daggett, “Such substantial unplanned cost growth undermines efficiency, further increases costs, and creates a need to restructure acquisition programs across all the services.”


5. Increased numbers of active duty troops. The last Pentagon authorization bill added 92,000 active duty troops to the military. Employing these additional soldiers will cost $13 billion a year and equipping them will cost another $50 billion.


6. Modern global security challenges. Finally, Daggett suggests that our current defense production may not accurately reflect our actual needs or concerns. Daggett divides potential military threats into four areas: irregular (i.e., terrorism), catastrophic (i.e., missile attack), traditional (i.e., conventional bombs and guns) and disruptive (i.e., biological or cyber warfare). Daggett suggests that the amount of money the government spends on these four types of conflict should reflect the likelihood that they will occur. For example, traditional warfare is unlikely to occur in the United States, and this funding could be shifted to higher-priority projects that are of more immediate concern.

Daggett argued that the military could save a lot of money by re-evaluating personnel and equipment needs. Weapons and facility costs could also be cut in the short term, but Daggett suggested that cutting funding for research and development might lead to a “less capable force” in the future.

Daggett saw both drawbacks and advantages to war supplementals, or money appropriated to cover war expenses after the base budget has been set. On the one hand, war supplementals are bad budgeting because they are not subject to budget caps and can lead to wasteful spending. On the other hand, separating war expenses from the regular budget means makes war spending less likely to become part of the base budget year-to-year.

J. Michael Gilmore, assistant director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) next shared his agency's most recent projections on the military budget. The CBO projects that military spending spiked in 2008 and will become more constant over the next 18 years, averaging $549 billion annually (in constant 2009 dollars) for budget requests or $652 include unbudgeted expenses such as war supplementals for continuing wars in Iraq an Afghanistan. CBO expects military spending to decline as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) to 3.1 percent by 2013 and 2.5 percent by 2026—it’s currently at 4.2 percent. These figures exclude unbudgeted expenses, such as war supplementals. Certain areas of military spending are expected to grow, mainly personnel costs and the rising cost of operating and maintaining military equipment.

Following this testimony, members of the House Budget Committee offered some remarks. These comments suggest that members of the committee are committed to re-evaluating the military budget for wasteful spending. Here are some of the highlights.

• The committee chair, John Spratt, pointed out that money spent on Homeland Security was part of the Pentagon budget before 2002. Spratt also asked about nuclear nonproliferation. He said the possibility of terrorists’ acquiring nuclear weapons posed the biggest threat to the United States, and he worried that this country might not be devoting enough resources to preventing this from happening.


• Ranking member Paul Ryan (WI) suggested that rather than set a “floor,” it would make more sense to cap military spending at 3 percent of GDP: “We cannot simply throw money at the Pentagon without proper oversight.”


• Rep. Allyson Schwartz (PA) wanted to know if all weapons spending for the Iraq war was accounted for in the CBO analysis. She expressed a concern about overspending on defense contracts. Gilmore responded that the CBO doesn’t audit Iraq war spending. He also noted that two-thirds of the military budget goes to contractors.


• Rep. Betty McCollum (MN) recalled the “three D’s”—defense, diplomacy, and development—and said the latter two need to be better funded in the Pentagon budget. Daggett agreed, adding that U.S. leaders need to think in the longer term and seek “trade-offs and balance” in the military budget.


• Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR) said that the military is “not a very good steward” in his state, degrading the environment by building new bases and testing weapons and aircraft.


We at FCNL thank Spratt for holding this committee hearing and hope that the Budget Committee will continue to look for ways to reduce military spending.

Yeah. You once again fail to realize the problem with said report that i've stated many times in this thread.

It's focus has nothing to do with research and upgrading of products.

It deals with operations budgets.

Did you read what I posted? There are sections that specifically talk about the cost of military research and how paying for weapons in general has become an enormous cost to the military. They are going back and using older models of things simply because the new weapons are not cost effective.

Which still ignores the useful technological advances it spurs.

As was stated earlier.  One could say Nasa has been a giant sinkhole of money as well if one were to ignore all the technological advances it has spurred.

Anyone see the Colbert Report's parody of Glenn Beck's end of the world scenario segment?

I doubt it will be the end of the world - maybe the end of an era. Back to the 1970s? W.I.N for the WIN.

In other news, DOW drops to 6594. GM is hurting and is on the verge of bankruptcy (again). Financial stocks keep on getting lower and lower. Certainly not looking pretty.