How would a surplus of 610 billion dollars impact America? This amount of money has the potential to provide a home to every homeless person in the United States for one year. Or, America could utilize these billions to put an end to world hunger for the next twenty years. Surprisingly, this sum of money could cover full-paid, four-year scholarships to every member of the military. Considering the infinite possibilities 610 billion dollars encompasses, it is frustrating to discover that the United States directs this enormous amount of money solely to the defense budget. Instead of using this money to change the world for the better, America puts this money towards destruction that would change the world for the worse.

Research from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute found that Germany, India, the United Kingdom, France, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China combined spend 601 billion dollars on their defense budgets. In tandem, these seven countries spend nine billion dollars less than America spends alone. While our country’s security is important, it is irresponsible to contribute such a large sum of money towards defense when other areas of government are weak and could benefit from portions of this money. Utilizing even a small percentage of this money to improve education or health services would drastically benefit America. Or, our government could use this money to address prominent issues in America such as poverty, unemployment, and a plethora of climate change affairs.

To put our government spending into perspective, according to The Business Insider, the Pentagon, which is the headquarters for the United States Department of Defense, spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. In fact, The National Priorities Project discovered that military spending takes up 54 percent of our country’s discretionary spending, which is part of the fiscal budget. These proportions are disgusting, especially when looking at figures that show only three percent of this spending is contributed towards the combined social security, unemployment, and labor programs. Six percent of the 1.11 trillion dollars is dedicated to education, while a small three percent is for science. Further statistics reveal even more vulgar information. According to Intel Daily, the United States, which holds about five percent of the world’s population, has almost 50 percent of the world’s military expenditure, a sickening and extremely embarrassing statistic.

As a nation, America is economically strong. Imagine the incredible change our country could make to improve the Earth if we only cut our defense budget in half. Even taking a third of this budget to contribute towards global issues would show recognizable transformations. Instead of making change, the federal government neglects this possibility by contributing more money towards military than any other country in the world. For a nation with a debt as monstrous as 65.8 trillion dollars (and growing by the thousands every second), our defense spending patterns are irresponsible and should be put to an end immediately.