The infamous (?) 1 trillion dollar foreign spending claim

[hyoomen]

As many of you are already aware, the recent Newsweek/Factcheck.org article on Congressman Paul, Wrong Paul (http://www.newsweek.com/id/110803), tries to dispute a number of claims. One of these is the claim by Congressman Paul that our foreign spending is nearly one trillion dollars.

Please help me find all of the various supporting resources for this claim. We need to make sure there is a factcheck factchecking.

Here's one I've found related specifically to the Defense budget:

In discussing the fiscal 2008 defence budget, as released on 7 February 2007, I have been guided by two experienced and reliable analysts: William D Hartung of the New America Foundation’s Arms and Security Initiative (2) and Fred Kaplan, defence correspondent for Slate.org (3). They agree that the Department of Defense requested $481.4bn for salaries, operations (except in Iraq and Afghanistan), and equipment. They also agree on a figure of $141.7bn for the “supplemental” budget to fight the global war on terrorism — that is, the two on-going wars that the general public may think are actually covered by the basic Pentagon budget. The Department of Defense also asked for an extra $93.4bn to pay for hitherto unmentioned war costs in the remainder of 2007 and, most creatively, an additional “allowance” (a new term in defence budget documents) of $50bn to be charged to fiscal year 2009. This makes a total spending request by the Department of Defense of $766.5bn.

But there is much more. In an attempt to disguise the true size of the US military empire, the government has long hidden major military-related expenditures in departments other than Defense. For example, $23.4bn for the Department of Energy goes towards developing and maintaining nuclear warheads; and $25.3bn in the Department of State budget is spent on foreign military assistance (primarily for Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Republic, Egypt and Pakistan). Another $1.03bn outside the official Department of Defense budget is now needed for recruitment and re-enlistment incentives for the overstretched US military, up from a mere $174m in 2003, when the war in Iraq began. The Department of Veterans Affairs currently gets at least $75.7bn, 50% of it for the long-term care of the most seriously injured among the 28,870 soldiers so far wounded in Iraq and 1,708 in Afghanistan. The amount is universally derided as inadequate. Another $46.4bn goes to the Department of Homeland Security.

Missing from this compilation is $1.9bn to the Department of Justice for the paramilitary activities of the FBI; $38.5bn to the Department of the Treasury for the Military Retirement Fund; $7.6bn for the military-related activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and well over $200bn in interest for past debt-financed defence outlays. This brings US spending for its military establishment during the current fiscal year, conservatively calculated, to at least $1.1 trillion. Le Monde Diplomatique - Why the US has really gone broke (http://mondediplo.com/2008/02/05military)

What are your resources for the 1 trillion dollar foreign expenditures claim?

[Dave Wood]

mega bump....everyone should read this

[libertythor]

Who wants to submit this to Digg? Its somebody else's turn.

[Malakai0]

He always says "and I can back this up" before claiming that, and interviewers never directly ask him to cite it. I've seen ever Rp interview ever and they have never asked him to elaborate.

So they can challenge it in an article but not to his face.

Wonder why

[hyoomen]

Agreed. It is kind of silly. I've seen a number of refutations of various attempts at factchecking like this, most of which focus on reporters/researchers not taking into account inflation (re: 2000 budget if we cut personal income tax) or interest paid to foreign owned debts (more than a quarter of our debt at last reference check).

Nevertheless, I want to find every resource I can for supporting Congressman Paul's claim. I've started looking through some of his personal writings, but I haven't found substantiation yet. Any help?

As an aside, I'd really like to see this sort of project develop into a rEVOLution media/research group meant to substantiate arguments that have been disputed in the popular press. All of the comments for the Newsweek article do a great job of countering the 'factchecking', but we could benefit from a unified, academically reinforced response to such attacks. This isn't just for the 2008 Presidential election -- this is for liberty in our lifetime.

[NightOwl]

There's an equally good article on my office computer, but for now, here's an excellent defense (http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1941) of the $1 trillion claim.

[Scott Wilson]

https://secure.wikileaks.ws/wiki/US_Military_Equipment_in_Iraq_%282007%29

[Ex Post Facto]

Hell I think your original post disputes it all. Well done.

[Truth Warrior]

Well, Ron is on the House Foreign Relations Committee, isn't he?

[hyoomen]

Hamadeh: thanks for the catch. The excerpt is from somebody else's article, but I suppose I can put the reference to UAR in brackets and change it to [United Arab Emirates] with a note.

For everybody else, while the articles posted thus far (including the one I found) discuss the inflated defense budget, few of them distinguish between foreign spending and domestic. I know when Congressman Paul refers to foreign spending he is discussing facts outside of just the defense department (especially since he wouldn't want to eliminate the nation's strong military). Anybody seen further information regarding the foreign spending (and I suppose this includes interest on foreign owned debt).

[NightOwl]

Possibly redundant, but this article (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174793/robert_dreyfuss_the_pentagon_s_blank_check) may also be helpful.

[newbitech]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

"According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

"We know it's gone. But we don't know what they spent it on," said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

http://whereisthemoney.org/

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=499

Another Supplemental Spending Bill for the War in Iraq

February 12, 2007

Two weeks ago I discussed how Congress and the administration use our fiat money system to literally create some of the funds needed to prosecute our ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’ve already spent more than $500 billion in Iraq, mostly through supplemental spending bills that are not part of the normal appropriations and budget process.

[Pauliana]

That's money they won't have to spend rounding us all up into prison camps.

That's one good thing about the coming depression. Should make that kind of thing harder to afford.

[newbitech]

That's money they won't have to spend rounding us all up into prison camps.

That's one good thing about the coming depression. Should make that kind of thing harder to afford.

thats a positive spin. but really its not money we have anyways. see the post right above yours. they just print the money.

[hocaltar]

That's money they won't have to spend rounding us all up into prison camps.

That's one good thing about the coming depression. Should make that kind of thing harder to afford.

Are you crazy? Desert or snow + fence = prison/gulag. The Russians did it in Siberia, it can happen in Nevada/Alaska.

[Edu]

That's money they won't have to spend rounding us all up into prison camps.They used the missing money to buy fences and big trucks to "round'em up", so it won't cost them much, they are ready to make sure the slaves don't rebel.

Now, maybe if you weren't owned, property of the government, with a (S)ocial (S)erial (N)umber attached to you like a dog tag they might not have the power to round you up anytime they want.

Now granted, some geek here will say that being sovereign doesn't mean they won't round you up to with the rest of the masses, and that would be correct. What I am saying is that people have given them permission to do whatever they want to them, and if enough people woke up maybe it would be a lot harder to do it.

What I am really saying is, IT'S YOUR FAULT!

[lastnymleft]

I watched a couple of days ago, some youtube of Ron Paul in a TX saloon, early in the campaign, probably June/July 2007. He addressed this point, and specifically said that it includes (amongst other things): (a) the cost of sections of the State Department that deal with the overseas adventurism, and (b) the interest on the costs. Both of these are legitimate costs to include.

UPDATE: It wasn't a saloon, it was a musky museum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYGkxqkmUtc It was either that vid, or one of the other two in the series.

[libertythor]

That's money they won't have to spend rounding us all up into prison camps.

That's one good thing about the coming depression. Should make that kind of thing harder to afford.

There is always money for prison camps. Just look at many of the third world countries that do it.

[lastnymleft]

Plus there are the "off budget items" associated with this area. Nobody really knows how much this is, but it's apparently a LOT.

[kyleAF]

https://secure.wikileaks.ws/wiki/US_Military_Equipment_in_Iraq_%282007%29

Try Cryptome.org too.

[idiom]

What about Foreign Aid? Does that come into it? That nearly all goes into bribes and such.