In support of my concern that the US economy is in for a bad time:
Excerpted from the Boston Globe of 2/19/02: "For the next fiscal year, the Bush administration proposes to spend nearly $400 billion on defense. Last week, in testimony before the House Budget Committee, Lawrence J. Korb of the Council on Foreign Relations and Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, put this figure in perspective. It represents a 30 percent increase over last year; a level 15 percent more, averaged annually, than what the Cold War required; the biggest budget jump since Vietnam. If approved, America's military spending will exceed the total defense outlays ''of the next 15 countries in the world combined.'' This year's ''increase of $48 billion alone is more than the total military budgets of every nation in the world.'' "This budget request, Korb observed, surpasses any budget that Donald Rumsfeld sent to Congress when he served as secretary of defense during the height of the Cold War. But doesn't Rumsfeld's war on terrorism require such urgent increases? No. As Korb notes, the war in Afghanistan has cost about $6 billion, and the budget for next year allocates $10 billion for the ongoing conflict against terrorism - both figures falling far short of the new increases which, Korb argues, will push the budget total to $580 billion by 2007. "The proposal funds programs and equipment that will play no role in any conceivable war against stateless terrorists - high-tech aircraft, submarines, tanks, the missile defense system. Fulfilling just these commitments will cost more than $100 billion. All of which amounts, in Korb's view, to ''throwing ... money at the Pentagon and refusing to make choices.'' Korb's is a lonely voice in this debate, and, incidentally, not one raised from the left. He served as assistant secretary of defense under Ronald Reagan." Lawry
