The United States denies universal health care while spending heavily on overseas bases

Evidence

By my very conservative calculations, the total cost of maintaining bases and military personnel overseas reaches at least 71.8 billion every year and could easily be in the range of 100–120 billion. That’s larger than the discretionary budget for every government agency except the Defense Department itself. And this number doesn’t even include spending on bases in overseas war zones. If we include the cost of bases and troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, in 2012 the total easily topped 170 billion. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 29 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The U.S. lacks universal health care while spending heavily on overseas bases.; US overseas bases cost taxpayers at least $71.8 billion annually — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 29

Related

• The U.S. lacks universal health care while spending heavily on overseas bases. (similarity 0.93)
• Overseas military health care and benefits add over $11.6 billion to the base bill. (similarity 0.88)
• US base spending dwarfs the cost of universal health care (similarity 0.88)
• US base spending persists while universal healthcare is deemed unaffordable (similarity 0.86)
• US overseas bases cost taxpayers at least $71.8 billion annually (similarity 0.85)
• Overseas bases cost more to run than domestic ones despite host-nation support (similarity 0.83)
• Independent estimates of overseas base costs exceed official figures tenfold (similarity 0.82)
• Official Pentagon figures understate overseas base costs by over fivefold (similarity 0.82)
• U.S. bases and troops abroad cost about $170 billion in 2012 (similarity 0.81)
• Official overseas base costs for 2012 totaled 22.7 billion dollars (similarity 0.81)
• True overseas base costs exceed the official Pentagon total by over threefold (similarity 0.81)
• Overseas base maintenance costs taxpayers over $100 billion annually (similarity 0.81)
• Official overseas base cost figures exclude all war-zone maintenance spending (similarity 0.81)
• Overseas base spending exceeds every federal agency’s budget except Defense. (similarity 0.80)
• Official overseas military cost reports omit hundreds of millions in allied spending (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• US overseas bases cost taxpayers at least $71.8 billion annually #corroborates (0.82) — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 29