Even by Bush administration standards, the military spending proposal for Fiscal Year 2008 - the budget year beginning on October 1, 2007 -- is enormous.

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Figures for the regular military budget exclude the costs of the current wars that the United States is engaged in. A proposed supplemental appropriation to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq of $141.7 billion brings proposed military spending for FY 2008 to $647.2 billion, the highest level of military spending since the end of World War II - higher than Vietnam, higher than Korea, higher than the peak of the Reagan buildup. There will also be a proposed supplemental of $93.4 billion added to this year's (FY 2007) budget, bringing the total for the year to $622.4 billion.

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What do all these figures mean? How can the average person make sense of these billions and billions and billions of dollars? Some comparisons may be helpful.

Proposed U.S. military spending for FY 2008 is larger than military spending by all of the other nations in the world combined.

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FY 2008 military spending represents 58 cents out of every dollar spent by the U.S. government on discretionary programs - the items that Congress gets to vote up or down on an annual basis. This means that military spending is more than the combined totals of spending on education, environmental protection, administration of justice, veteran's benefits, housing assistance, transportation, job training, agriculture, energy, and economic development.

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