Military expenditure

“ Manœuvres form an expensive portion of the conscript's training, and it will be understood, when it is remembered that under ordinary peace conditions France maintains twenty military stations, each forming the skeleton of an army corps, that the annual cost to the state runs into a considerable fraction of the total military expenditure, this including the cost of food for men, forage for horses, the running of transports and stores, and all the expenses incidental to the maintenance of troops in the field. ”

“ The high volume, of demand which has been maintained by the continuance of military expenditure at a level which is about 20 per cent of the total national income, together with the delayed demand which could not be satisfied during the war. ”

“ This increase in local expenditures is to be accounted for chiefly by the fact that the rapidly increasing developmental expenditures fall in great part upon the local governments. To estimate their true significance for the general welfare and for the financial outlook of a nation, the expenditures should be weighed as well as measured. In general, the growth of military expenditure is to be deplored. ”

“ Everyone nowadays seems demanding increased expenditure upon war preparation. I will follow the fashion. I will suggest that we have the courage to restrain and even to curtail our monstrous outlay upon war material and that we begin to spend lavishly upon military and naval education and training, upon laboratories and experimental stations, upon chemical and physical research and all that makes knowledge and leading, and that we increase our expenditure upon these things as fast as we can up to ten or twelve millions a year. ”

“ I am sure, if the enormous reductions I have effected in military expenditure are considered, the most rigid economists will feel that the money paid by Great Britain for the control of this country has been advantageously laid out. ”

“ All countries spending much on their armies now do the same, except the United Kingdom, which stands alone in having still practically little but a regimental system in existence. But although we are old-fashioned, to the point of being utterly unprepared (except in India) for the stress of war, we nevertheless spend sums so vast as to stagger and amaze even the French and German critics, who ought to be pretty well used, one would think, to large sums for military expenditure. ”

“ By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure. ”

“ Expenditure upon preparation for war falls, roughly, into two classes: there is expenditure upon things that have a diminishing value, things that grow old-fashioned and wear out, such as fortifications, ships, guns, and ammunition, and expenditure upon things that have a permanent and even growing value, such as organized technical research, military and naval experiment, and the education and increase of a highly trained class of war experts. ”

“ Other factors are the national wealth, the indebtedness of the State, and, lastly, the confidence in its productive and military capabilities.
As regards the first point, I have already pointed out that in a great civilized World State the balancing of the accounts must never be brought about in the petty-State fashion by striking out expenditure for necessary requirements, more especially expenditure on the military forces, whose maintenance forms the foundation of a satisfactory general progress. The incomings must, on the contrary, be raised in proportion to the real needs. ”

“ The burden of cost to provide an adequate army for the general service of the Empire, added to the ever increasing weight of expenditure necessary to maintain predominant sea-power in the world, suggests the question. How long can the resources of these islands discharge the general naval and military obligations of a world-spread State? The warnings of successive Chancellors of the home Exchequer are sufficiently ominous to make it impossible to believe the present rate of expenditure can much longer continue. ”

“ The losses in treasure were as colossal as in blood. Only rough computations are possible. But the direct military expenditures are estimated at figures varying from a billion and a quarter to a billion and a half of dollars. ”

“ For years it has been stealthily gaining, while the people at large have [Pg 6] paid no heed. Military expenditures have grown larger and larger—they have trebled within a generation—and the people have voiced no vigorous protest. ”

“ If the financing of armaments is continued, German currency will be ruined and there will be inflation in Germany.
The memorandum also spoke of limitless credits, of unrestrained expansion of credits, and unrestrained expenditure. By expenditure we meant armaments. ”

“ Military combination, even for defensive purposes alone, must certainly mean a common foreign policy and the joint expenditure which is necessary to make it effective; a common foreign policy and expenditure imply some means of giving adequate expression to the will of all the communities concerned ”

“ The actual money costs or expenditures of government for war include not only the actual outlays for military and naval purposes, but also the whole range of expenditures incurred in industrial life to prepare the wherewithal for the Army and Navy; and they also comprise the sums devoted to the maintenance of the families of the soldiers. All these items are far greater in modern times than they used to be. ”

“ When it is considered, that the expenditures of the army, (supposing the war to be carried on in the Southern States, must greatly exceed the amount of the sums called for from those States,) one position is clear, that by complying with the requisitions of Congress, [69] a balance of money must necessarily be brought in from the other States, to supply the deficiency of the whole revenue in those particular States, when compared with the amount of the whole expenditure. ”

“ Defense spending accounts for less than 30 percent of our budget today - far less than 20 years ago. We've cut our planned defense buildup 3 years in a row and cut it again this year - and all this while our adversaries have raced ahead with the greatest military buildup in the history of man. ”

“ Altho we have not a foot more territory to conserve, or an enemy in the world who dreams of attacking us, we find that our annual military expenses during the last twenty years have risen from £12,000,000 to £22,000,000. ”

“ With troops currently on the ground fighting our enemies, my budget increases defense spending by 7 percent, money that will go the pay for equipment, ammunition, and troop housing. We'll keep our military strong and ready for every challenge that may come. Since I took office, we have increased pay for our men and women in uniform by 21 percent. Next year, I propose raising their pay by another 3.5 percent. Our troops put their lives on the line to defend America, and we owe them our best in return. ”

“ Every dollar paid to them in wages, and every dollar expended in connection with their work, would prevent devastation or create values for the nation immensely larger than the total expenditure. The values created and benefits assured in time of peace would alone justify the expenditure. The value to the nation of such a great Reserve Force of trained and hardened men in time of war would again justify the expenditure. ”

“ Great Britain, with a population of about twenty-five millions, and a general budget of $250,000,000, supports a military and naval force of about 150,000 effective and 100,000 non-effective men, 250,000 in all, at an annual expense of from seventy to eighty millions of dollars.
Russia, with a population of about seventy millions, supports an active army of 632,000 men, with an immense reserve, at an expense of about $65,000,000, out of a general budget of $90,000,000; that is, the expense of her military establishment is to her whole budget as 7 to 10. ”

“ Expenditures for procurement and construction will constitute one-third or less of total defense outlays, compared to a ratio of two-thirds during the war years.
The estimates also provide for the maintenance of our war-expanded naval and merchant fleets, military installations, and stocks of military equipment and supplies. Our naval combatant fleet is three times its pre-Pearl Harbor tonnage. Our Merchant Marine is five times its prewar size. The War Department has billions of dollars worth of equipment and supplies. ”

“ What we spend each year for military purposes. The Stupendous Cost of Armaments.—Although the people of the United States dislike war and desire peace the national government is now spending about $750,000,000 every year to maintain the country’s military and naval forces. ”

“ The army and guard are well equipped with modern arms. Finance.-Of the national revenue nearly half is derived from customs duties, taxes being levied also on real estate, licences, tobacco, stamped paper and in other ways. Nearly half the expenditure goes to meet debt charges, while government, internal development and defence absorb most of the remainder. ”

“ Most people lose sight of the magnitude of the present appropriations, expenditures, and operations of the United States, as well as of their wastefulness under the present military system. We are spending over $100,000,000 a year on a standing army of less than 100,000 enlisted men. That amounts to a billion dollars in ten years. It is five billion dollars in fifty years. And we may be certain that five billion dollars will be spent, and probably much more, in the next fifty years on a standing army. ”

“ I am very sure that I fall below the mark in saying that, after the first year of the war, and when the resources of the country shall be fully brought into action, the annual military and naval expenses will amount to sixty or seventy millions of dollars. To this must be added the expenses for all other objects, which, for the year ending on the 30th of June, 1845, amounted to near fifteen millions, but which the Secretary of the Treasury hopes may be reduced to eleven millions and a half. ”

“ Personnel expenses mainly cover salaries, allowances, housing, insurance, food, bedding and clothing for officers, non-ranking officers, enlisted men and contracted civilians. Training and maintenance expenses mainly cover troop training, institutional education, construction and maintenance of installations and facilities, and other expenses on routine consumables. Equipment expenses mainly cover R&D, experimentation, procurement, maintenance, transportation and storage of weaponry and equipment. Defense expenditure covers costs to support the active forces, reserve forces, and militia. ”

“ Look at the army of 8,000 men only, kept up at an expense to the nation of $1,000 for each man. Was not this a crying abuse that ought to be corrected? Why, if the proposition had succeeded to increase the army to 20,000 men, the expenditure at this rate would have been twenty millions annually. ”

“ National defense, which means the upkeep of the army and navy and the building of armaments, has been taking close to 20 cents of the dollar, making the total chargeable to war, past and future, about 70 cents. ”

“ If we do not need our full armed strength, we need not summon it. The only problem is the not very weighty one of money—not very weighty I say in passing, because I have no wish to enter upon a discussion of the financial and military figures, and of the fact that France has spent three milliards for the improvement of her armaments these last years, while we have spent scarcely one and one half milliards, including what we are asking of you at this time. But I leave the elucidation of this to the minister of war and the representatives of the treasury department. ”

“ Though in a period of peace, when ample means could be derived from duties on other articles for the support of the Government, it may have been deemed proper not to resort to a duty on these articles, yet when the country is engaged in a foreign war and all our resources are demanded to meet the unavoidable increased expenditure in maintaining our armies in the field no sound reason is perceived why we should not avail ourselves of the revenues which may be derived from this source. ”

“ In order to keep a high standard of armaments in open competition all the states would have to secure a tenfold supply of everything—ten times the artillery, munition factories, vessels and U-boats of former days, and also many more soldiers to work the machinery. The annual military budget of all the Great Powers would comprise many milliards—it would be impossible with all the other burdens which the belligerent states will have to bear after peace is concluded. ”

“ The report of the Secretary of the War Department exhibits a very full and satisfactory account of the various and important interests committed to the charge of that officer. It is particularly gratifying to find that the expenditures for the military service are greatly reduced in amount—that a strict system of economy has been introduced into the service and the abuses of past years greatly reformed. The fortifications on our maritime frontier have been prosecuted with much vigor, and at many points our defenses are in a very considerable state of forwardness. ”

“ An expenditure of 15 billion dollars for war liquidation, occupation, and national defense is a large sum for a year which begins 10 months after fighting has ended. It is 10 times our expenditures for defense before the war; it amounts to about 10 percent of our expected national income. This estimate reflects the immense job that is involved in winding up a global war effort and stresses the great responsibility that victory has placed upon this country. ”