Reducing Federal Spending.

washunut said:

If I could jump in. We need to attack spending in all of it's forms. Why debate which should go first and wind up doing nothing.

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Because if you -have- to do something, then you need to do it with the greatest possible effect - which means identifying the problem and creating an effective means of dealing with that problem.

-I'll- agree to cutting defense spending by any amount anyone cares to specifiy, so long as they then agree to cut entitlement spendong $3.48 for each $1 cut from defense.

Ockham said:

Priorities. Flat cuts across the board are geared to States and usually not the Fed.
Not talking about flat across the board cuts. Just that we need to look at everything to find areas to cut.

Some we still need - Japan and S. Korea for example. Other we could close - say 50% in Europe for example.

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Not sure why we still need troops in Japan.

washunut said:

Not sure why we still need troops in Japan.

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A staging point for N. Korea. Let's face it, S. Korea will be hit first and overrun. Japan is the staging point for any continuing conflict. N. Korea knows how to provoke - and a few missiles into downtown Tokyo would certainly do it.

Now ask me why we have to protect Japan.

WilliamJB said:

I have a modest proposal for how to drastically reduce the debt and spending without touching any of the social programs that millions of Americans rely on: reduce the defense budget by 25%.

The US currently spends the same amount on its military as the rest of the world combined. Including funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it totals $1.3 trillion. With the Cold War over, and any threat to the US coming from extremely low-tech wackos in caves in Afghanistan/Pakistan, I think that this would be a great approach to take, but I've heard nothing about it from either side of the aisle.

Thoughts?

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If Congress cuts the military, the Republicans will accuse Obama as being soft on national defense, and the Dems will lose the election. It's as simple as that.

It's called gotcha, survival politics, and the only power to bring Congress back to sanity is votes.

ricksfolly

Ockham said:

A staging point for N. Korea. Let's face it, S. Korea will be hit first and overrun. Japan is the staging point for any continuing conflict. N. Korea knows how to provoke - and a few missiles into downtown Tokyo would certainly do it.

Now ask me why we have to protect Japan.

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We have troops in South Korea to face off with the North. Not sure why we need troops in Japan.

Goobieman said:

Because if you -have- to do something, then you need to do it with the greatest possible effect - which means identifying the problem and creating an effective means of dealing with that problem.

-I'll- agree to cutting defense spending by any amount anyone cares to specifiy, so long as they then agree to cut entitlement spendong $3.48 for each $1 cut from defense.

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The end result will have to be cutting both defense and entitlement spending as well as tax increases.

Goobieman said:

Because if you -have- to do something, then you need to do it with the greatest possible effect - which means identifying the problem and creating an effective means of dealing with that problem.

-I'll- agree to cutting defense spending by any amount anyone cares to specifiy, so long as they then agree to cut entitlement spendong $3.48 for each $1 cut from defense.

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Assuming the $3.48 is the same reasoning as in that Polls thread, your numbers are off.

Well my comrade (to OP), you are correct but sadly the people that disagree will only see a reduction as a weak national defense but, this is far from the truth. We could cut all foreign military aid. We could stop the 2 wars. We could stop using 3rd party military groups, etc. If we used the military for defense purposes only, we would be spending a whole lot less.

WilliamJB said:

I have a modest proposal for how to drastically reduce the debt and spending without touching any of the social programs that millions of Americans rely on: reduce the defense budget by 25%.

....

Thoughts?

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Is there some reason you feel completely unconstitutional federal programs should be preserved? Yes, that includes 100% of the "social" programs you just exempted, as well as such burdens as PBS, the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, Ag subsidies, various other grants to industry and academia for this and that, not to mention the whole education establishment.

The DoD, a legitimate agency of the government serving the Constitutionally mandated role of national defense, should never be a sacred cow, of course. We should continually assess DoD roles in light of current goals and the Constitution, and budget what is necessary and cut where appropriate.

Probably cutting the defense budget by a full quarter when we have men in combat is just a stupid notion.

Certainly the United States should tell Europe that we're done protecting them, time for those ingrates to provide for their own defense, and we can see how well their faltering economies do when confronted with that additional burden.

We have a treaty obligation with Japan what would require some ticklish diplomacy to cut them loose, and given the American blood shed to establish our forward miliary bases there, it's probably not something that could be accomplished in less than a decade.

How much of our military budget is wasted on drug interdiction efforts, when there's no Constitutional basis for outlawing drugs in the first place? That's a place to cut.

How much of our military budget is not being spent to patrol our border with Mexico to stop the invasion of the United States by hostile aliens? Practically nothing. That's a place to increase spending.

No, the budget ain't going to be balanced on the backs of our soldiers. Can't work. The problem is, and always has been, the intrusion of government into the private sector and it's blatant violations of the Constitution that cause so many of today's economic problems.

Deuce said:

The Air Force is not an enumerated power.

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Would you be happier if the Air Force was still under the command of the United States Army?

That's where it would be if the Air Force hadn't been formed.

We'd still have the airplanes, the air bases, the men, the materiel, the infrastructure, SAC and MAC, and the works.


So where's your argument now?

Should the Constitution have been amended to form the Air Force? Probably.

Is the function of the Air Force unconstitutional? Nope.

Is Social Security unconstitutional? Yup.

Is the FHA unconstitutional? Yup. Just like the Department of Education and all sorts of other alphabet soup agencies formed in the last century. There's no constitutional authority for the government to be providing ANY of that.

The Air Force? Read the Pre-amble, where it says "provide for the common defence". That word "provide" is very specific.

Winston Smith said:

Not really. Defense, even strictly defined, is 23 percent of the budget...hardly a crack.

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So, "strictly defined", cutting 23% by 25% is a "savings" of 5.7%.

Yet, if we cut the unconstitutional Department of Education budget (that's the state's job, not the federal government's), we'd save the whole defense budget every year, and the states would become free, as they're supposed to be, to form their own curriculum and their own spending choices.

Scarecrow Akhbar said:

So, "strictly defined", cutting 23% by 25% is a "savings" of 5.7%.

Yet, if we cut the unconstitutional Department of Education budget (that's the state's job, not the federal government's), we'd save the whole defense budget every year, and the states would become free, as they're supposed to be, to form their own curriculum and their own spending choices.

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I'm not sure where you're getting that. The USDE budget request for 2009 was less than 1/10 of the DOD budget, and that's without counting supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan.