Chart of the Week: It's the Military, Stupid

Taxes and budgets are the topic du jour in the presidential sweepstakes, with both major candidates touting alternative tax proposals. The only way you tell them apart is by who they want to tax and how they want to spend it. But this chart tells most of the deficit story:

The United States is in deep debt because it spends more than the next 14 countries combined on the military.  Yet only Congressman Ron Paul consistently talks about closing bases around the world and bringing military personnel home. Military spending may be shrinking as a percentage of the budget, but as an absolute figure, it is at historically high levels:

source: marketoracle.co.uk

And apparently there is no end insight because all three leading Repugnant candidtates are trying to out swagger each other on war with Iran. This jingoism despite an Israeli intelligence estimate reported by Harretz stating Iran has not yet decided to begin a military nuclear program. This Israeli assessment will be presented to visiting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Martin Dempsey. The same conclusion was reached by US intelligence in 2007 and 2010. The other big part of the deficit story is a tax code riddled with loopholes (like long term capital gains) that rewards the wealthy and penalizes the middle class. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation recognizes this circumstance:

Until every American pays their share of taxes in a truly progressive system that is relatively simple and fair, there is no way deficits can be brought under control. The Greeks did do that and look what happen to them. Greece's international creditors now have the right to seize the nation's gold reserves. Its not much at 100 tons but its the last vestige of Greece's national sovereignty.