Fun facts about U.S. military spending

We all know the "War on Terror" has cost a pretty penny since Sept. 11, 2001. Heck, it seems like the only thing that has been accomplished is the ungodly squandering of tax money.

Here's some fun facts about the obscene spending and allocation of funds in the U.S. Department of Defense (this information comes from defenselink.mil, warresisters.org and a Feb. 28, 2009, article from The New York Times):

• Former President George W. Bush approved a 2009 fiscal year defense budget of more than $515 billion, nearly $36 billion more than 2008.

• This figurative "War on Terror" has cost us an estimated $860 billion.

• In 2006, it cost about $390,000 per year "to sustain each American trooper overseas."

• $965 billion of our income tax goes toward the current military; $484 billion of our income tax goes toward past military (such as veterans' benefits and the interest that is put on our national debt due to past military endeavors).

• The largest chunk of the current military spending is operation and maintenance, which is estimated to spend roughly $241 billion

• The other money-sucking components of the current military spending are "procurement" (i.e. let's buy a lot of unnecessary crap, thank you Haliburton, Blackwater, ....), military personnel, research and development, retiree payments, nukes within the Department of Energy, Homeland Security, NASA, and others.
  

• The United States has roughly 545,000 military facilities in roughly 5,300 sites in the Unites States and around the world.

That last point really shows a glaring problem. The United States' overbearing propensity to police the world not only digs deep into our pockets, but it's also the reason why many countries are put off--and understandably so--by this pompous U.S. military attitude.

Video of the Day: I guess Jan Terri slipped through the cracks of pop music stardom. But how? This video is just too damn good.