Costs of US wars linger for over 100 years (http://news.yahoo.com/ap-costs-us-wars-linger-over-100-years-085816749.html)
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.
An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans — 148 years after the conflict ended.
At the 10 year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, more than $40 billion a year are going to compensate veterans and survivors from the Spanish-American War from 1898, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two Iraq campaigns and the Afghanistan conflict. And those costs are rising rapidly...
I've repeatedly pointed out to the deadheads - who continue to claim 'entitlements' such as Social Security and Medicare etc. are the biggest budget items and need to be cut - the fact that military expenditures amount to more than 50% (and IIRC, close to 60%) of government expenditures, and yet those same deadheads invariably want more military spending.
Above is yet one more supporting fact as to how military expenditures outstrip all other government expenditures and specifically how war costs continue to linger on and on and on.
I'd also like to point out that unconstitutional undeclared wars have continued to add to those costs and may be just one more reason why there is a distinctly numerated provision for declaring war in our Constitution that hasn't been followed since at least WWII.
Social Security is NOT and entitlement and neither is Medicare. Welfare and Medicaid are. There is a charge for Medicare right off the top of your SS check and if you want extra coverage, prescription, dental, and eye, you pay extra. If you didn't pay into Social Security you don't collect it. Now SSI in some instances could be considered an entitlement but that is a whole different ball game.
Quote from: me on March 20, 2013, 05:09:40 PM
Social Security is NOT and entitlement and neither is Medicare. Welfare and Medicaid are. There is a charge for Medicare right off the top of your SS check and if you want extra coverage, prescription, dental, and eye, you pay extra. If you didn't pay into Social Security you don't collect it. Now SSI in some instances could be considered an entitlement but that is a whole different ball game.
But Miss "ME" why does your Republican leaders like Turtle Head, Boner and Lying Ryan call them entitlements. :doh: