The Economics of Federal Defense Policy
Three out of four Americans polled in the 1992 election year believed that the
United States was heading in the wrong direction. With such an overwhelming
consensus, the country hired a new president to attempt to fix the vital issues
at hand. Although both Republicans and Democrats believed that the United States
was still the "sole superpower", the people of the United States saw that their
quality of life was deteriorating. In fact, the signs of economic, social, and
political decay were undeniable.
For example, the wages of production workers in America have declined twenty
percent in the last twenty years due to large corporations shifting their
operations overseas. Over thirty-seven million Americans are without health
insurance due to its exploding costs. There are about sixty million people below
the poverty line; fourteen million of which are children. Our crime rate is at
an all-time high as well as the population in our prison system. The United
States has nineteen preceding nations that have lower infant mortality rates.
Among the twenty most developed countries in the world, the United States has
the highest divorce rate and the highest teen pregnancy rate. The most
incredulous fact of all is that the Pentagon continues to absorb twenty percent
of the federal budget-over a third of which is spent protecting Europe against
an enemy that no longer exists.
In fact, that is the most probable source of America's problems: the budget.
Forty-seven percent of the national federal budget is spent for a military
expense. The National Defense, the topic of this paper, is what is stealing
money from the poor in our own country and lessening our statu ...