In the midst of financial bailouts and failing economies, the Pentagon has revised its request for funding from the United States government. It is now asking for $524 billion in funding, a $9 billion increase in its baseline request for next fiscal year. This does not include added expenses for keeping troops overseas fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is likely to add a few more billion to the budget.

What does this mean for the nation? President Bush entered the Oval office back in 2000 with a relative surplus in the National economy. Fast forward nearly eight years later, and this country is trillions of dollars in debt. Most of that debt comes from costly wars and defense budgeting. These are the tax payers dollars and supplementals to Congress.

Should we be spending this much on defense? We are talking over a half trillion dollars for one year! Surely there must be some inefficiencies that could be eliminated to bring down this dollar amount. When President-Elect Barack Obama takes office January 20th, among the many other issues on his plate, he needs to take a serious look at government spending programs. He needs to evaluate their effectiveness and appropriateness, and make changes accordingly.

The United States Dollar can not be the open, readily-available resource that it has been to government spending programs the past eight years. Military officials expect the Pentagon budget requests to reach a plateau in the next couple of years as the wars are dialed down and research on new weapons technologies advances to the production stage.

Photo Credit: CNN

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