If I had a million dollars...

Slate's got an interesting piece on the DoD budget which is certainly worth a read. The general gist of it is that the government spends a crapload more than we need on stupid, bloated programs that may or may not have any use. My favorite bit, re: stealth fighters:

The Pentagon plans to buy 177 F-22s at a total cost of more than $65 billion (measured in real 2005 dollars). Plans for the F-35 are a bit shakier, but they hover around 2,500 aircraft costing more than $100 billion.

Right now, no prospective enemy can shoot down our non-stealthy planes. We already have a handful of F-35s, dozens of F-22s, and a few dozen stealthy B-1 and B-2 bombers. Certainly we could at least postpone further production and use the money to address more urgent threats (or simply to save the money).

Yep. God bless the USA. "We need more planes!" "Uh, why?" *beat* "Why do you hate America?"