Chart of the Week: Fighting for Pay

Another inconvenient fact is that the biggest US jobs program is run by the Pentagon as this chart indicates:

Even though the absolute number of military employees is declining due to population growth, the amount the Pentagon spends on our volunteer warriors is growing.  The growth in the Pentagon's budget ($708B) is not envisioned to decrease despite the drawdown of troops in Iraq.  There is something to be said for compulsory national service when the cost of a completely professional standing army gets more burdensome over time. Perhaps if the responsibility for fighting our nation's frequent wars were not shunted aside to a tiny minority of citizens, we would not be subjected to a seemingly endless, costly series of conflicts by executive choice. As any competent historian will tell you, paying for a bloated military establishment has contributed greatly to the ending of empires. See Rome; see Great Britain; see Soviet Union, etc.