I, too, am a secular conservative. I can care less about religion.

The MTS website is a great resource. It informs you of the month to month status of Federal spending and receipts. It is also updated with ever more current projections for spending and receipt.

You are, of course, incorporating entire budgets of entire Departments to substantiate your claim that ‘defense’ consumes $700 Billion. That is not the standard way of looking at things. Anyway, you are including supplimentals that haven’t been voted on yet. My money is on yet another 6% increase in total DOD spending – that is, to $545 Billion or so. That number will include the supplemental. Personally, I think the DOD can tighten its belt a bit. It really doesn’t need an annual budget increase past inflation anymore. We have survived the Clinton Legacy!!!

However, when you make a statement like:

“I’m all for disbanding our $700 billion a year war machine so we can balance the budget, Morgan.”

You are talking about having NO DOD budget, NO Veterans Affairs budget, and apparently NO Homeland Security budget.

Even Mexico has a DOD budget, a form of a Homeland Security budget, and some type of Veterans retirement budget.

Shall we help the veterans by building cardboard shacks on the Whitehouse lawn? Been there, done that.

Obviously, not all of the $700 Billion is being spent on Bush’s War Machine. No military, no disaster relief, no boarder patrol, no customs control, and no veteran’s benefits. You are exceedingly compassionate.

How about this statement:

I am all for disbanding Health and Human Services so we can balance the budget, Alphie. I am all for disbanding Social Security – the Boomers could have saved some retirement money.

Regardless, next year the Federal budget will be balanced.

What then…

I, too, am a secular conservative. I can care less about religion.

The MTS website is a great resource. It informs you of the month to month status of Federal spending and receipts. It is also updated with ever more current projections for spending and receipt.

You are, of course, incorporating entire budgets of entire Departments to substantiate your claim that ‘defense’ consumes $700 Billion. That is not the standard way of looking at things. Anyway, you are including supplimentals that haven’t been voted on yet. My money is on yet another 6% increase in total DOD spending – that is, to $545 Billion or so. That number will include the supplemental. Personally, I think the DOD can tighten its belt a bit. It really doesn’t need an annual budget increase past inflation anymore. We have survived the Clinton Legacy!!!

However, when you make a statement like:

“I’m all for disbanding our $700 billion a year war machine so we can balance the budget, Morgan.”

You are talking about having NO DOD budget, NO Veterans Affairs budget, and apparently NO Homeland Security budget.

Even Mexico has a DOD budget, a form of a Homeland Security budget, and some type of Veterans retirement budget.

Shall we help the veterans by building cardboard shacks on the Whitehouse lawn? Been there, done that.

Obviously, not all of the $700 Billion is being spent on Bush’s War Machine. No military, no disaster relief, no boarder patrol, no customs control, and no veteran’s benefits. You are exceedingly compassionate.

How about this statement:

I am all for disbanding Health and Human Services so we can balance the budget, Alphie. I am all for disbanding Social Security – the Boomers could have saved some retirement money.

Regardless, next year the Federal budget will be balanced.

What then…

Here’s the numbers on interest paid last year on the national debt put out by the treasury Dept:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm

$405 billion last year, just like I said.

Defense Budget just passed – $460 billion
War on terruh – $147 billion

We’re at $607 billion

Throw in Veteran’s admin budget – $86 billion
Homeland Security(yeah, it’s defense) – $40 billion

..and we’re well over $700 billion on “defense” spending and there’s plenty more tucked into the budget elsewhere.

I’m not a liberal, just a secular conservative.

Here’s the numbers on interest paid last year on the national debt put out by the treasury Dept:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm

$405 billion last year, just like I said.

Defense Budget just passed – $460 billion
War on terruh – $147 billion

We’re at $607 billion

Throw in Veteran’s admin budget – $86 billion
Homeland Security(yeah, it’s defense) – $40 billion

..and we’re well over $700 billion on “defense” spending and there’s plenty more tucked into the budget elsewhere.

I’m not a liberal, just a secular conservative.

Pure and simple.

One blathers out budget numbers that are easy to verify. He (Alphie) was wrong on both numbers. We are actually paying more in interest, but far, far less in DOD spending. The other thinks I am offended when the government spends a bit more money on national defense. He probably thinks we could defend the nation using mothballed passenger jets – maybe he thinks we can convince those stupid morons who volunteer in our rapacious military to suicide bomb the glorious high-rises bin Laden is building for widows and orphans in Iran or Pakistan or Syria or the Caucuses or wherever he is!!! You know, send out the assassination squads to pinpoint bin Laden and arrest him – or secretly kill him when he is all alone; or roll a d20 and try some magic feat…

To WaitAMinute:
I want to spend or borrow money to defeat militant Islam. Don’t you think Osama looks a bit down in the mouth? I don’t think he was counting on a Weak Horse lasting half a decade. I mean, we spent the 80’s and 90’s running from him and the other miscreants in the militant Islamic movement. At least Reagan had bigger fish to fry. Why run in the 90’s when you are the lone superpower?

To Alphie:
It is going to be really hard to beg for more taxes when we are running surpluses. Our problem is that our oldsters will be having their savings bonds redeemed by the government. They are counting on years of interest to keep them off the Alpo. Where are they going to invest their savings? And, the biggest problem other nation’s central banks will soon have is that they will not be able to purchase the safest investment in the world – the US Treasury Bond. Much like our oldsters, these central banks kinda like the safe returns of these investments. And, they are liquid. Now they will have to look at the Yen or Euro or Ruble or the Taiwanese Bat or whatever. Whose investing in the Chinese Yan… Yawn…

Pure and simple.

One blathers out budget numbers that are easy to verify. He (Alphie) was wrong on both numbers. We are actually paying more in interest, but far, far less in DOD spending. The other thinks I am offended when the government spends a bit more money on national defense. He probably thinks we could defend the nation using mothballed passenger jets – maybe he thinks we can convince those stupid morons who volunteer in our rapacious military to suicide bomb the glorious high-rises bin Laden is building for widows and orphans in Iran or Pakistan or Syria or the Caucuses or wherever he is!!! You know, send out the assassination squads to pinpoint bin Laden and arrest him – or secretly kill him when he is all alone; or roll a d20 and try some magic feat…

To WaitAMinute:
I want to spend or borrow money to defeat militant Islam. Don’t you think Osama looks a bit down in the mouth? I don’t think he was counting on a Weak Horse lasting half a decade. I mean, we spent the 80’s and 90’s running from him and the other miscreants in the militant Islamic movement. At least Reagan had bigger fish to fry. Why run in the 90’s when you are the lone superpower?

To Alphie:
It is going to be really hard to beg for more taxes when we are running surpluses. Our problem is that our oldsters will be having their savings bonds redeemed by the government. They are counting on years of interest to keep them off the Alpo. Where are they going to invest their savings? And, the biggest problem other nation’s central banks will soon have is that they will not be able to purchase the safest investment in the world – the US Treasury Bond. Much like our oldsters, these central banks kinda like the safe returns of these investments. And, they are liquid. Now they will have to look at the Yen or Euro or Ruble or the Taiwanese Bat or whatever. Whose investing in the Chinese Yan… Yawn…