Contractors are hardly alone in raking in the dollars from the Pentagon's baseworld. Pentagon officials, military personnel, members of Congress, and lobbyists, among others, have all benefited -- financially, politically, and professionally -- from the giant overseas presence.

There is a direct connection between the massive level of U.S. military spending and belt-tightening austerity at home: most federal discretionary spending goes for war. Aren't there other, better things that Americans could be doing with their money?

The fact that government devotes too much to Social Security is no argument for spending too much on the military. With the threat of runaway deficits, debts, and interest payments, the U.S. cannot afford any budget sacred cows.

When one considers how completely out of whack our defense budget is in the post 9/11 age of perpetual war, the cuts will still leave us with a military budget that dwarfs all other countries combined.

WASHINGTON — Soldiers deployed to Afghanistan next year may see their war tours extended because budget cuts will drastically limit training for...

The Republican's main objective is to use the pain of sequester to force Democrats into accepting reductions in social and health security accounts. To achieve this end they are willing to let the Pentagon take a temporary hit and they are confident it will be temporary.

Today, politicians are happily feeding a complicit media a made-up story about a "fiscal cliff" and a nation that is too broke to pay the bills. Don't believe the hype.

Despite the prescient warnings of past presidents, who were also leading generals, the expanding war industry is now militarizing our public budgets, foreign policy, civil liberties and commercial culture as never before.

Solving the underlying causes for conflict through diplomacy and development comes at a fraction of the cost compared to military intervention. The United States is too often caught reacting to a crisis without having made concerted efforts to prevent it in the first place.

To stand up to a retooled and more powerful than ever military-industrial establishment requires boldness and a deep commitment to peace. If President Obama seeks to leave a meaningful legacy in his second term, this is the place to start.

The U.S. spends almost as much money on its military as all other nations in the world combined. Roughly 54 percent of the federal budget goes for past, present, and future wars. Why do we spend so much?

WASHINGTON — One war is done, another is winding down and the calls to cut the deficit are deafening. The military, a beneficiary of robust budg...

It's one thing for our military to ask for an increase -- but they didn't ask for it to begin with. Sound familiar?

We're doomed to have never-ending deficits and wars until we allow alternative ideas into the mainstream conversation.

Rahm Emanuel wants to cheapen education to make it conform to a standardized testing model. So how about we come up with standardized testing models to see how our do-nothing politicians measure up?

Even those who believe that modernization is more important to the Air Force than any other pressing issues should be encouraged by the actual budget data. The Air Force is not locked in a "downward spiral" but is dealing, like the rest of our military, with a drawdown from war and a tight fiscal situation.

Viewing the recent House of Representatives debate on the 2013 Defense Appropriations bill (HR 5856) was as disorienting as if living in an alternate reality.

To have a capable military on an affordable budget, excessive or outdated programs must be cut. His solution is that nukes should be on the chopping block. It's strong advice.

As Martin Luther King told us, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." What kind of society can regard such indiscriminate violence and taking of life as a justifiable form of defense?

A key paradox for progressives of our national political life goes something like this: everybody complains about Congress, but nobody does anything about it.

According to the way the House operates, the authorization bill is the most open opportunity to challenge current policy. When the House considers the appropriations bill, amendments can be offered to cut money for specific programs.

Obama's proposed cuts, part of a strategic rebalancing towards greater investment in infrastructure, education, and other long-term sources of American strength, are relative -- at worst, they represent a flatlining of defense spending.