THE COST OF EMPIRE: $663,000,000,000.00

While Obama has promised to increase troop recruitment levels, he has hinted that he wants to cut some spending on some as-yet-unidentified weaponry.

"We need to run an empire."

In the Real News Network video clip below, Miriam Pemberton, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, cites the demand of some in congress to keep the F-22 Raptor, despite escalating production expenses.

The major contractor for the F-22 is Lockheed Martin, but pieces of the program have been farmed out to companies in "44 of 50 states to create a political constiuency for the plane," says Pemberton. Burlington's General Dynamics Armament Systems is one of them, and they can thank Sen. Patrick Leahy for that prize.