There are numerous jokes about the government paying obscene amounts of money on frivolous things. How much do you think the United States government spends on air conditioning tents and temporary facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan? Information presented by Every Day, No Days Off puts the bill at $20 billion which is $1 billion more than NASA’s entire budget.
The largest part of United States spending is military related. Some people will say that spending $20 billion on keep our troops comfortable is a minor cost compared to the sacrifice those soldiers make. I say that sending them over there in the first place is not only an offense against them but also against those countries. Most of those soldiers signed up with the intention of defending this country but instead were sent overseas into third world countries that posed no viable threat to the United States. We’re risking the lives of soldiers for needless occupations that accomplish nothing more than getting soldiers kill and dumping endless amounts of cash into the military industrial complex.
When a country has to spend more on air conditioning for occupying troops than getting our asses further into space you know the is a problem. In our case that problem is imperialism which has been shown to be an unmaintainable system time and time again (seriously it didn’t work out in the long run for the Mongols, Romans, British, Spanish, Soviet Union, or any other military force).