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What would you do with our defense spending?

What would you do with our defense spending?

  • I would increase defense spending.

    Votes: 8 14.0%

  • I would decrease defense spending.

    Votes: 44 77.2%

  • I would leave defense spending the same.

    Votes: 5 8.8%
  • Total voters
    57
I would keep it the same and push for an efficiency overview. Take the money we save being more efficient and help out the veterans with it.

For example. I am a veteran. During my time as an FC instructor for the USN @ GLNTC, the sailors living/staying on base, in their Battalion BEQ's, would strip and wax and buff the decks on their duty day. The following day, the sailors living/staying on base in the battalion BEQ's, would strip and wax and buff the decks on their duty day. Keep in mind, duty day, for any particular sailor, fell every 4th day. When the decks were done, they would then go play softball or volleyball for "P.T."

This time could have been better put to use saving money doing other things we typically pay others to do.

I understand the concept of keeping them busy on their duty day but stripping, waxing and buffing a deck, every day of the week, is a waste of time and money that could have been better spent elsewhere. This is just a minor example given to make a point.

I read that America's military spends more than the rest of the world's military's combined. I have asked before. How much bigger must our military be, compared to the combined military's across the globe? As big? Two times bigger? Ten times bigger? When will enough be enough?

Well, I assure the military complex will tell you that enough will never be enough. Eisenhower warned us about this.
 
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Porchev said:
VEAP sucked. I had that when I first got in but converted to the Montgomery GI Bill (for a fee), then I moved to the Post 9/11 GI Bill after that. I am simply suggesting that if cuts absolutely positively have to happen, then find some places in the military budget that doesn't directly effect war fighting capabilities. And I am not suggesting GI Bills go away, just trim it down a little for budgetary reasons. Like I said, cut stuff the hurts the least. Nobody seems to want to cut anything.
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But the VA is not part of the military budget. It is it's own cabinet level department, with it's own budget.
 
Oozlefinch said:
But the VA is not part of the military budget. It is it's own cabinet level department, with it's own budget.
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They are related close enough to talk about for military type budget cuts IMHO.
 
joG said:
True. But that is no excuse for the man in the top job.
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It is when you need funding to actually do anything.

Dan Brown once wrote a book that had the US's adversary describe the US military as a "Sledgehammer." Does obscene damage when it hits, but it must hit. Where that book revolved around evading the hammer, politically obstruction at home does the same thing.

Obama's foreign policy is severely hamstrung for the simple fact that Congress is more interested in scoring political points then actually doing anything. I've said it before, but we need to eliminate gerrymandering in the name of national security.
 
Jango said:
Actually, they do and did which is why there was an expose back in the '80's about it and subsequent stories years afterward.
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Not really. That was just some journalists looking at expense reports. Black budget has always been funded this way. Book $500, pay $50, use the rest on black operations.

The black budget is in the defense budget. The expenses are not out in the open, but are in other line items and the classified programs line item.
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The black budget has always been that way, it's just not properly labeled. There's really no difference between putting a black operation funding in classified and putting a black operations funding via appropriating crazy amounts for simple stuff and then using the difference between actual and budgeted to fund it. It's all coming out of the Pentagon.
 
I would drastically reorganize the military according to the principles of non-intervention: meaning that all military alliances and military aid with other nations are to be cancelled as well as the closure of all overseas military bases and adjust the budget accordingly.
 
obvious Child said:
It is when you need funding to actually do anything.

Dan Brown once wrote a book that had the US's adversary describe the US military as a "Sledgehammer." Does obscene damage when it hits, but it must hit. Where that book revolved around evading the hammer, politically obstruction at home does the same thing.

Obama's foreign policy is severely hamstrung for the simple fact that Congress is more interested in scoring political points then actually doing anything. I've said it before, but we need to eliminate gerrymandering in the name of national security.
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Sounds like a systemic problem. What do you want to propose?
 
joG said:
Sounds like a systemic problem. What do you want to propose?
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Feed the voting data into an algorithm that makes every district as competitive as possible. Some are obviously going to be strongholds, but if we can make the majority of districts battlegrounds, we'll see far more reasonable candidates arise. Then overall voting rules to make them party neutral. Thus, if two democrats or two republicans get the most votes total in a primary, they both go to the general. I don't think it's a coincidence that Perot's major showing scared the crap out of both parties to the point where they both engaged in blantant gerrymandering to secure as many stronghold districts as possible times with the gradual polarization of Congress. I do not think that Americans are as divided as the media portrays. I believe that gerrymandering taken to the extreme has favored a very small minority of people in picking candidates who do not represent the average American. It's exceptionally odd that Ross Perot is in some ways the instigating factor of many of country's problems. He didn't directly cause it, but the reaction of the two parties to his major showing did.
 
obvious Child said:
Feed the voting data into an algorithm that makes every district as competitive as possible. Some are obviously going to be strongholds, but if we can make the majority of districts battlegrounds, we'll see far more reasonable candidates arise. Then overall voting rules to make them party neutral. Thus, if two democrats or two republicans get the most votes total in a primary, they both go to the general. I don't think it's a coincidence that Perot's major showing scared the crap out of both parties to the point where they both engaged in blantant gerrymandering to secure as many stronghold districts as possible times with the gradual polarization of Congress. I do not think that Americans are as divided as the media portrays. I believe that gerrymandering taken to the extreme has favored a very small minority of people in picking candidates who do not represent the average American. It's exceptionally odd that Ross Perot is in some ways the instigating factor of many of country's problems. He didn't directly cause it, but the reaction of the two parties to his major showing did.
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Would you want to go whole hog and create virtual districts?
 
joG said:
Would you want to go whole hog and create virtual districts?
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What do you mean by virtual? The algorithm would work within states and redistrict basically as they do it now, just instead of making strongholds, it would destroy them and make them competitive. These are real districts, they just won't look like the old ones for the most part. Yeah, parts of the Bay Area in San Francisco are going to be solid Democrat, and parts of Texas will be solid Republican, but there are plenty of purple areas in the country that are ripe for turning into battlegrounds.
 
obvious Child said:
What do you mean by virtual? The algorithm would work within states and redistrict basically as they do it now, just instead of making strongholds, it would destroy them and make them competitive. These are real districts, they just won't look like the old ones for the most part. Yeah, parts of the Bay Area in San Francisco are going to be solid Democrat, and parts of Texas will be solid Republican, but there are plenty of purple areas in the country that are ripe for turning into battlegrounds.
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Why not the population disassociated from the particular location within a state designed for optimum competition with your logarithm. Individuals would then stand in a chosen virtual district. There would be a minimum number of one color districts.
 
Kal'Stang said:
What would you do with our defense spending? Would you downsize it? Increase it? Leave it the same? Please explain each of your choices.
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I would most likely push to reduce it, along with a reduction everywhere else. It would still remain as a significant percentage of total expenses for the country.

We have a financial problem in this country, and it's a problem that needs to be addressed in every facet of federal spending.
 
joG said:
Why not the population disassociated from the particular location within a state designed for optimum competition with your logarithm. Individuals would then stand in a chosen virtual district. There would be a minimum number of one color districts.
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I guess, but it would very hard to campaign when your voters were spread across the entire state. At least with my proposal, they're somewhat geographically together. Plus, your Congress member may have basically nothing in common with you other than living in the same state.
 
I'd cut it by at LEAST 90%. we don't need the Army, the surface navy, the air force or the Marines. we can defend the US just FINE with backpack nukes, the missile subs, the spec ops guys and the Natl'guard, Ditto the spy outfits. cut them by at least 90%. close all foreign bases except the sub-support spots. We can pay all the 1 million or so troops 20k per year (untaxed) to be laid off, and still save 3/4 trillion $ per year. And not have the world hating us for being bullies. Stop ALL foreign aid, it's just wasted. Start paying as yet childless women (worldwide) 5k each to be sterilized. Fingerprinting will stop "repeaters". Overpopulation is causing most of the problems and it's completely unnecessary. She can get 2 shots into her fallopian tubes, be out of service for 2 hours, and she'll have the kind of money that changes lives in the 3rd world, (ie, get OUT of there, start a biz there, get an education there). Also, 5k is enough to entice a bunch of the worst of the air-heads in the US, too. It's be a HUGE favor to any kids the latter would have had, for sure!
 
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Decrease military spending, Apply savings to health care, education and infrastructure repair.
 
TeleKat said:
Who said we wouldn't have those as well? I certainly didn't. I said that there should be no standing army, as in soliders sitting around getting paid to wait for someone to invade us. That doesn't mean our military can't have equipment in store. I said reduce it around 80% not 100%.
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I am sorry but this is kind of retarded. You do realize that it takes a long time to learn to fly a plane or a helicopter or even effectively use a tank. What would be the point of stockpiling that equipment if no one knows how to use it. Do you think people will just instinctively know how to set in and run a mortar or how to set up head space and timing on a 50cal.
A trained and equipped military will kick the ever living crap out of a bunch of civilians with guns. Your plan of counting on the fact that lots of Americans have guns will keep any one from invading is horribly misguided. Any decent military could roll this country up rather quickly if it weren't for the military. Now there could be a good insurgency that would make life hell for the occupiers but that would only be after they already had control of the country and I don't think that is something we would find enjoyable.
 
obvious Child said:
I guess, but it would very hard to campaign when your voters were spread across the entire state. At least with my proposal, they're somewhat geographically together. Plus, your Congress member may have basically nothing in common with you other than living in the same state.
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There are certainly drawbacks. I guess politics being local still means that it must still be bound to location in the geographical sense.
 
braindrain said:
I am sorry but this is kind of retarded. You do realize that it takes a long time to learn to fly a plane or a helicopter or even effectively use a tank. What would be the point of stockpiling that equipment if no one knows how to use it. Do you think people will just instinctively know how to set in and run a mortar or how to set up head space and timing on a 50cal.
A trained and equipped military will kick the ever living crap out of a bunch of civilians with guns. Your plan of counting on the fact that lots of Americans have guns will keep any one from invading is horribly misguided. Any decent military could roll this country up rather quickly if it weren't for the military. Now there could be a good insurgency that would make life hell for the occupiers but that would only be after they already had control of the country and I don't think that is something we would find enjoyable.
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everybladeofgrass.jpg
 
Smartest thing you have said yet.
ginwood said:
I'd cut it by at LEAST 90%. we don't need the Army, the surface navy, the air force or the Marines. we can defend the US just FINE with backpack nukes, the missile subs, the spec ops guys and the Natl'guard, Ditto the spy outfits. cut them by at least 90%. close all foreign bases except the sub-support spots. We can pay all the 1 million or so troops 20k per year (untaxed) to be laid off, and still save 3/4 trillion $ per year. And not have the world hating us for being bullies. Stop ALL foreign aid, it's just wasted. Start paying as yet childless women (worldwide) 5k each to be sterilized. Fingerprinting will stop "repeaters". Overpopulation is causing most of the problems and it's completely unnecessary. She can get 2 shots into her fallopian tubes, be out of service for 2 hours, and she'll have the kind of money that changes lives in the 3rd world, (ie, get OUT of there, start a biz there, get an education there). Also, 5k is enough to entice a bunch of the worst of the air-heads in the US, too. It's be a HUGE favor to any kids the latter would have had, for sure!
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TeleKat said:
View attachment 67165756
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Sorry my friend but if you think a bunch of untrained civilians with small arms is going to stop an enemy who will be using infantry making full use of mortars artillery and CAS as well as being backed up by tanks and gunships I don't know what to tell you.
I have personally seenwhat happens in that seneraio in both Iraq and Afghanistan and it's not pretty.
 
Henry David said:
But then what do we do with the money we have not spent on the military?

Save the money and reduce the deficit, or spend it on other more important things like infrastructure or healthcare?
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Could that be done? Both, realistically, I mean.

My first thought is to reduce drastically while still maintaining strength, and reduce the deficit. But, our infrastructure is in desperate need of upgrading and we seriously need to reinvest in that.
 
radcen said:
Could that be done? Both, realistically, I mean.

My first thought is to reduce drastically while still maintaining strength, and reduce the deficit. But, our infrastructure is in desperate need of upgrading and we seriously need to reinvest in that.
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Realistically, no, because our politicians and the government they run is utterly corrupt and inefficient, completely lacking common sense and decency.
 
how about just NOT TAKE that moneyin the first place from the people who EARNED it?
 
I would get rid of it completely. It's 21st century and there's nukes, no need for a military
 
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