I read today (I forget where it was, I was reading on my phone waiting for an appointment) that between 11% and 13% (or approx $80 Billion) of the yearly US Defense budget goes, in some form or fashion, to protect the flow of oil from the Middle East. This is ONLY the "on- budget" items. Much of the war spending is "off-budget", but that is another story.
In the US we consume approximately 138,000,000,000 billion (378 million per day X 365 days, then rounded up) gallons of gas PER YEAR.
If you divide $80 billion by 138 Billion gallons you get $.58 cents of defense spending per gallon of gasoline consumed in the US.
Something to think about the next time you are standing at the pump. That reminds me--I have to go fill up now...
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Hey Gene..I am not sure about the math there..About 50% of our oil is domestically produced. That number has actually increased in the last few years and its projected to increase even more in the next 2 decades. I don't know exactly what percentage but a pretty big chunk comes from canada and mexico. You got to subtract all of that from the money that is spent on protecting middle east oil. The resulting money spent on gasoline will be easily over a dollar and I am not sure we would spend that much to protect the middle east portion of our oil..cuz I am sure they are feeling the squeeze. Their growth area is probably coming from oil demands from developing nations. Just a hunch...this seems like a number someone from the right threw out. They probably took our entire spending in the middle east and attributed it to oil and use it to make a case against obama. We are actually much better off now since our domestic oil production is up and demand for oil has decreased (partly due to recession). Just to be clear..I am not saying that our oil production is up due to obama..since many of these investments were made before obama (and probably has nothing to do with who the president is)...but he has made positive strides in this area. (especailly by helping reduce demand by getting car companies to promote more hybrids). Check out the link..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.npr.org/2012/01/24/145719179/foreign-oil-imports-drop-as-u-s-drilling-ramps-up