Conservatives: Should our defense budget be on the chopping block?

[shadow9d9]

Yep, it's an awesome responsibility isn't it?



I don't think you understand who we are, our role in the world, and why that is.

We have no role other than corporate welfare for political donors. We spent 1.5 trillion accomplishing nothing in the ME, we have bases everywhere because we have an illusion that it does anything, and we provide free defense to WW2 offenders from over 60 years ago.

It is no responsibility, it is simply power hunger and chickenhawking.

 

[cwjerome]

We have no role other than corporate welfare for political donors. We spent 1.5 trillion accomplishing nothing in the ME, we have bases everywhere because we have an illusion that it does anything, and we provide free defense to WW2 offenders from over 60 years ago.

It is no responsibility, it is simply power hunger and chickenhawking.

That's one opinion.

Luckily for us and the world the US will not be giving up our unique and important position anytime soon.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Man I am so sick of the bogus claim that "Entitlements" are the biggest contributor to our deficits, its just pure manufactured bullshit.

1. SS and medicare aren't entitlements, they are old age insurance programs funded by payroll deductions. Are adjustments necessary to keep them solvent? Sure but to consider them entitlements and govt spending is bogus

2. Comparing annual outlays for these programs to other types of pure spending like military without considering the annual tax revenues funding these programs is dishonest and just wrong.

3. Without the payroll tax income from these programs that Congress has unfortunately turned into their own personal line of credit the government would probably run out of cash in a matter of weeks.

When I see someone claim that those big bad entitlements are our major problem, I immediately dismiss them is dishonest liars or too stupid to listen too.

 

[Fern]

Among the so-called entitlement programs Medicare and Medicaid ARE big budget problems. However, IMO, this is primarily caused by the underlying problem with health care - runaway cost increases.

SS is not a significant problem and shouldn't be mentioned in a discussion about budget problems.

So, to an extent, I agree with you.

Fern

 

[pcgeek11]

Your brush is too broad. It depends on which parts of the military budget you want to cut.

I agree some needs to be cut, along with all of the welfare and assistance programs. Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment ...

 

[monovillage]

I think the OP was surprised about how many conservatives are ready and willing to cut defense spending contrary to his preconceptions. I guess that's why he never posted again in his own thread.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Among the so-called entitlement programs Medicare and Medicaid ARE big budget problems. However, IMO, this is primarily caused by the underlying problem with health care - runaway cost increases.

SS is not a significant problem and shouldn't be mentioned in a discussion about budget problems.

So, to an extent, I agree with you.

Fern

I agree that medicare and medicaid are problems, like you say primarily due to the insane increases in all healthcare costs. The medicare problem was made much worse by medicare part D which is a huge handout to big pharma companies.

Medicaid is also a conceptual problem in that as a society we have decided that we will not deny anyone a basic level of healthcare regardless of their ability to pay for it, yet we refuse to properly fund our own self inflicted moral obligagtion. The only way we will ever get a handle on medicaid is with single payer UHC.

 

[Jadow]

yes

 

[Anarchist420]

Ideally we would be holding hands and singing songs of peace and harmony. So how did you arrive at the 80 billion figure? I'm keen to know.

LOL. That's gay. Anyway, I think it should be zero, but $80Bn is enough for a well guarded public subarmoury system only on American soil (especially once most of the military weapons are sold).

 

[theevilsharpie]

There is no need in having a nuclear stockpile that could destroy the world several times over. Its nothing more then wasted money.

I'd suggest the exact opposite. When you have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, maintaining traditional military forces is a waste of money.

We could maintain our existing nuclear stockpile and the equipment needed to use it, cut 95% of our traditional military forces and equipment (leaving a bit for border defense), and be just as secure while spending much less.

 

[OutHouse]

i would like to know why Obama has not had a budget the entire term of his office. i want to know where all those trillions of dollars are going before i can say we need to cut our military budget.

 

[OutHouse]

I'd suggest the exact opposite. When you have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, maintaining traditional military forces is a waste of money.

We could maintain our existing nuclear stockpile and the equipment needed to use it, cut 95% of our traditional military forces and equipment (leaving a bit for border defense), and be just as secure while spending much less.

most idiotic post in this entire thread.

 

[Pulsar]

I'd suggest the exact opposite. When you have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, maintaining traditional military forces is a waste of money.

We could maintain our existing nuclear stockpile and the equipment needed to use it, cut 95% of our traditional military forces and equipment (leaving a bit for border defense), and be just as secure while spending much less.

Really? So when someone invades a country, say Iraq into Kuwait (because we know that would never happen), we should nuke Kuwait to get Iraq back out?

You may be missing the point, unless you're voting that the only purpose of our military should be self defense. I wouldn't completely disagree with you about that... but suggesting that nukes are the only thing that's needed is ridiculous.

"Mr. President, the Mexicans just invaded Houston."
"Nuke 'em."

 

[theevilsharpie]

Really? So when someone invades a country, say Iraq into Kuwait (because we know that would never happen), we should nuke Kuwait to get Iraq back out?

Sure. Follow it up with the nuclear bombardment of Iraq's supporting forces within Iraq itself to completely disarm them and seal the deal.

You may be missing the point, unless you're voting that the only purpose of our military should be self defense. I wouldn't completely disagree with you about that... but suggesting that nukes are the only thing that's needed is ridiculous.

The nice thing about nuclear weapons is that they provide a great deterrent effect. You really don't even have to use them for them to be effective. For that nations that are actually stupid enough to engage us and our allies in military action anyway (such as your Iraq example) we'd only need to make an example out of an aggressor nation once.

Hence why I said that we might actually be safer.

 

[Steeplerot]

Annex the world and lets hit space or quit dicking around giving kickbacks to corrupt outsourcing of the military and weapons manufacture.

We can just call it manifest destiny reloaded.

 

[cybrsage]

Using nuclear weapons is a bad idea...especially using them over sand - which will become activated and then blow directly into food producing lands.

 

[Griffinhart]

Man I am so sick of the bogus claim that "Entitlements" are the biggest contributor to our deficits, its just pure manufactured bullshit.

1. SS and medicare aren't entitlements, they are old age insurance programs funded by payroll deductions. Are adjustments necessary to keep them solvent? Sure but to consider them entitlements and govt spending is bogus

In theory this is correct, but in reality, the average SS and Medicare recipient gets roughly 3X the amount they paid in during their life time.

2. Comparing annual outlays for these programs to other types of pure spending like military without considering the annual tax revenues funding these programs is dishonest and just wrong.

But ignoring the fact that the system as it stands is headed to epic failure sooner than anyone wants to admit is dishonest and just wrong as well.

3. Without the payroll tax income from these programs that Congress has unfortunately turned into their own personal line of credit the government would probably run out of cash in a matter of weeks.

But, the government HAS run out of cash. That's what Deficit spending is. We were days away from running out of borrowed cash in December. We are weeks away from running out of Decembers Borrowed cash today unless the debt ceiling is lifted again.

When I see someone claim that those big bad entitlements are our major problem, I immediately dismiss them is dishonest liars or too stupid to listen too.

Entitlement spending IS our LARGEST problem. There are several other LARGE problems as well. Entitlements are clearly not a one stop solution to the problem.

So far, with the 2011 budget we spent 3.3 Trillion dollars and borrowed 1.56 Trillion. If we were to repeal bush's tax cuts and enact the Presidents proposed Millionaires tax, we would have reduced that borrowed amount to, optimistically, 1.46 trillion. Entitlement spending currently takes up almost 57% of our spending. The past few years has been very similar and the next several will be no different. Even with the tax increases, we can pay for the entitlements and the Interest on what we owe before having to borrow more money. That's before a single bullet is purchased for the military, or a single paper clip is purchased for congressional secretaries. Before the actual cost of running the government.

We need to cut back on everything and find new ways to do what we need done for less money. We can forego new carriers, we can cut back new military developments. We can redeploy in more cost effective ways as well.

We also need to cut back on entitlement spending, and find new ways to provide the required services in a more cost effective way.

We even need to look at serious changes the tax code that won't destroy the economy.

Consider this. 2011's Interest payment on the national debt equals what we spent for our military in 1999. The amount we pay on interest alone would fund almost 70% of today's Medicaid plan. We can not afford to keep feeding that debt.