I suppose I just failed to follow the “support the troops not the war” pandering to its most logical conclusion, thinking all along that the Left might actually understand what supporting the troops really means, you know, like paying for the stuff that makes them “The troops.”  Even the average misguided anti-gun boob can be trained to announce proudly that the militia should have the guns, all while the Democrats stumble over each other to get at the nearest camera to announce that we are spending too much on defense and the war.  I guess they didn’t actually think we’d want to pay for them.     So in reality, it seems at least, the only ‘Troops’ the Left really likes are the ones they can convert into cash-sinks for social programs, and even then it’s probably not because they bravely served to protect our rights and deserve these benefits–filtered through their bureaucracy first– but because they lived to benefit from the Lefts “right” to provide government largess. 

Every democrat between the coasts has a gripe about how expensive the war is, and how much we spend on defense, and how we should be using that money to “help the middle class, but the fact is that we spend five times more on social programs than defense, all at the expense of the middle class.  Maybe they just run out of time before they get to that part?  That’s ok, I’m here to help.  (Charts and details on the jump)

To get some perspective we have a nice chart courtesy of Heritage.org, that plots defense spending as a percentage of GDP.  (Click the link for a version with better resolution.) You may notice a small bump after 9/11.  (Al Gore has the same data, only on his chart it looks like a hockey stick.)  You might also notice that the military–even in the midst of two “expensive” wars–is still spending less than the historical average.   So I’m not sure where we are “spending too much on defense.”  We went to 6.5% to end the Cold War. We might need more than 4% we have today to win the GWOT, not that there is a GWOT, except, you know, just that one in Afghanistan, that wasn’t really a war, until, well, you know.  

On chart two, also from Heritage.org, we see the expenses of such left wing essentials as federally funded Medicare, Social security and so on.

In 1965 annual spending was 169 billion and as of 2007 it was around 1.45 trillion.  (Use the link to view the full size version) 

So….It might be safe to say that Federal welfare programs, which have grown several hundred percent, are the programs “consuming more and more resources.” 

And Democrats have made it clear in 2008, that this chart is just the beginning of their plans for our tax dollars.  It also seems clear that raising our taxes is not the only place they will look to fund their schemes.  Whining about “excessive defense spending” is not so much a complaint as a promise that defense spending will serve as just another feeding tube for their addiciton.  They will willingly cut military equipment and infrastructure funding, and redirect that cash to feed their mutant tax dollar eating social welfare apparatus.

Social Welfare programs already consume about 21% of GDP, around 1.7 Trillion.  That’s more than 5 times as much as defense spending.  And current estimates, without trillions more to fund Obamanomics, estimate that by 2050 social welfare spending will represent at least 46% of GDP.  Mix in some Obamanomics, plus the fact that estimates are usually short by a factor of 10, and we end up with a government that will spend the equivelant of over 50% of its National GDP on giveaways at taxpayer expense.

Remember, someone has to pay for all of this, and that someone is you, and your children.  The democrats are as insincere as ever about spending, and they will continue to sell you on their vision of the future.  Just remember, it is one based on deception, with a very tiny military, and a massive budget that will have so many people on the dole, there probably won’t be enough people actually working to fund it. 

That’s what democrats call progress.