wow the spending went down after the end of the cold war? color me shocked comrade.

im not blaming military spending as a root cause for the deficit, i was directly talking about how republicans have never been for responsible spending. i simply used mil spending and crop subsidies as examples, we could also reference the war on drugs, war on crime, and other issues to paint a picture of how the GOP contributes to the deficit.



best case scenario it leads to less intervention overall and more spending on preparedness.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Feb 6 2020 08:56am

That ship has sailed. Now the US has a jingoistic China threatening our positions in the far East, which are of actual economic and strategic importance to the United States (as opposed to say Afghanistan).

Power is exponentially harder to wield over long distances, China does not need to equal our spending, although in a decade or two they might, to be able to deny the United States access to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and SE Asia. Even Guam might be indefensible at this rate.

But even if we entertain that, what is ~$150 billion going to do to a deficit of ~$1 trillion? We should reduce our footprint in Europe and the ME, but don't expect that to make a huge impact.

Tax receipts need to go up, spending needs to come down. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid represent well over $2 trillion in spending. That is where the only meaningful cuts can come from if the goal is to actually balance the budget.

Reduce it by 15%

Or, you know, increase taxes on the rich. Particularly on those who got rich without doing something productive. In fact, tax rates dont even have to go up, it would already go a long way to (actually really) close the gaping tax loopholes for large corporations.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 6 2020 09:15am

Which causes irreversible harm to the American military and is quickly replaced by debt interest payments (~$400-500 btn and expected to double in decade) spending directly linked to financially insolvent social programs.

Let's stop scapegoating the military and address the actual issue here.

Yes. It's not like we're talking lettuce here. Running low on military can't be fixed.. overnight. Take fighter jets for example... ya don't just build one over night. This is true of just about every facet of a modern military. Including, training the people to BE soldiers.
Just the one line per item list of electronics parts we used in the late 70's early eighties was a stack of spread sheet (19" wide?) THREE inches thick. And that was pretty much before computers. JUST electronics.

It would be a godsend for ANY govt. to be able to lower military spending by say, 25% in peace time. But that's robbing Peter to pay Paul. And the bill, when it comes due, in non-peace time, ends up getting paid for in our own human lives.
Seems like a great idea on paper, but in practice, it doesn't work very well.

This post was edited by Ghot on Feb 6 2020 09:17am

That's blasphemy.

It reduces those too lol. You just made the argument that X isn't worth saving money on because something else will generate interest later.

"Causes irreversible harm to the military". Funny how you're applying one set of standards to the military and a whole different set of standards to the public.

Yeah there's other issues, but the military is definitely one of the issues. Nobody is scapegoating the military, we're pointing out that there is definitely a problem there but not saying there aren't other problems as well.

and you've enjoyed the "non peace times" we've had in the last 60 years?

every war since WW2 has been a massive mistake.

As I said, taxes go up, spending goes down.

The tax code is a mess, attempts to simplify it (which would increase revenue without necessarily increasing rates) are always crushed.

It's a waste of time to argue what's "productive" and what isn't. The economy is so complex that economists struggle with it, but what, a few politicians or bureaucrats are going to make that decision for us?