MIC--#2

The approved '04 defense budget is around $400 Billion this year (and expected to grow). An interesting article by Robert Higgs of The SF Chronicle points out that TOTAL outlays for the military (including portions of agency budgets related to homeland security and the war on terror) is more like $600 Billion.

Here's the article: http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1253

That makes our defense budget about two and a half times the revenues of Walmart, and larger than the annual revenues of Exxon Mobile, General Motors, and Ford COMBINED.