Thread: Reducing Federal Spending.

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?

I think its not discussed because its considered political suicide. Many will not disagree with you here, however.

Originally Posted by SE102

I think its not discussed because its considered political suicide. Many will not disagree with you here, however.

Unfortunately, I think you're correct. I think the reason is more complex than just that we have a strong patriotic streak which makes us think that we need to be able to kick anyone's ass. In truth, I believe that our power is a stabilizing force worldwide. Instability would follow any massive reduction in that power. Nevertheless, I'm also starting to believe it is national suicide not to take steps to reduce the world's reliance on our military might.

Originally Posted by WilliamJB

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?

Dejavu - we just discussed this, quite a few times . . . it's not a new debate.
But like abortions - I guess there's no killing it.

There's a vapis vat of areas which can be tightened significantly without reducing defense spending directly - but no one listens to me so it'll never happen

Originally Posted by Aunt Spiker

Dejavu - we just discussed this, quite a few times . . . it's not a new debate.
But like abortions - I guess there's no killing it.

There's a vapis vat of areas which can be tightened significantly without reducing defense spending directly - but no one listens to me so it'll never happen

Apologies, I hadn't seen the thread before.

as soon as you get the conservatives in here, you'll be a marxist that hates america and sodomises homosexual muslims, or something to that effect.

Originally Posted by spud_meister

as soon as you get the conservatives in here, you'll be a marxist that hates america and sodomises homosexual muslims, or something to that effect.

LOL! That's what I'm hoping...

I would agree with defense budget reductions, but only after an intense analysis of it's impact. One cannot depend on just pure numbers. The troops and monetary investments are there for a reason. I am a big supporter of social programs. but if defense is cut TOO strictly, social programs won't mean much if our borders are being threatened because of insufficient presence worldwide. I used to be a staunch supporter of military cutting, but no longer. It needs to be made more efficient... just like social programs. If we focused on efficiency and effectiveness in BOTH realms, I would imagine that cutting spending would not be very difficult.

Originally Posted by WilliamJB

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?

I say ... remove all corporate welfare spending and business tax breaks. That will force big business degenerates to pay their fair share... and provide additional funding for other projects.

Whenever any bureaucracy reaches a kind of critical mass, the budget tends to start driving the policy instead of the other way around. This fact is often pointed out in criticisms of big government programs like welfare, education, all manner of regulation, etc. For some reason people imagine that the military is immune to it, but in fact it happened with "defense" spending a long time ago. We spend all this money for the reason that Eisenhower predicted, which is to feed the military-industrial complex. And the problem is worse than most people realize.

Al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 because they know military spending is the key to our undoing. They saw the strain it was putting on our economy and thought that if they could draw us into a major escalation, all they would have to do was hold out until we collapsed. So far, it looks like they had a good plan.