[George W. ] Bush’s $2.57 trillion budget for 2006 increases military
spending by 4.8 percent – not including the war in Iraq – and cuts all
other federal government programs by 0.5 percent. The deepest cuts are
aimed at services for working Americans and the poor.

The primary purpose of this budget is to fund the war machine needed to
push foreign policy objectives in the Middle East and to guarantee
military dominance in the world. It represents a 41 percent increase in
military spending since 2001. For fiscal 2006, that spending will rise
to $419.3 billion, not including the $100 billion for Iraq and
Afghanistan, and billions more for the military, hidden in other agency
budgets.

U.S. military spending is now larger than the rest of the world’s
combined. The second largest is by China, at $51 billion, followed by
Russia at $50.8 billion, Japan at $41.4 billion and the United Kingdom
at $41.3. Iran and North Korea – the two countries that Bush most often
cites as military threats – spend about $5 billion each. The Bush
budgets no longer represent simple adjustments or new priorities in
spending, but a set of fundamental changes.

These include redirecting nearly all federal resources to the military,
channeling huge amounts of spending to the private sector, shifting the
tax burden away from the corporations and the wealthy and onto the
working class, and relying on deficit spending to finance the military
buildup without raising taxes.

Greg Tarpinian is the president and executive director, Labor Research
Association, a New York City-based non-profit research and advocacy
organization that provides research and educational services for trade
unions.

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