US militarism has gotten out of hand. As has been pointed out above 50% of the discretionary federal budget is devoted to this sector:

http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm

There have been other periods in time when the military budget was such a large fraction of the GDP, but these were in times of emergency like WWII. What is new this time is that starting in the 1990's there was no enemy, but the military continued to grow anyway. Threats have been exaggerated or manufactured in order to justify the continuing level of spending. Just yesterday Bush tried to equate the cold war with the "war on terror" as a justification for permanent unchecked spending.

In addition the military/industrial sector has gotten much smarter in the last 50 years. Projects are now spread over many states and congressional districts to insure that legislators have a local interest in keeping projects going.

While all this has been going on other sectors of the society have been allowed to back slide. The poster child being the Katrina preparation and response. Similar failings can be seen in education, the manufacturing sector and civil engineering projects.

I hate to bring up Rome, but the US is starting to look a lot like the end of empire. None of the recent critics of current policies have been able to offer any suggestions on how to turn the ship of state around.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape