World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[MrPopo]

Gee guys, I'm glad our government is so clean and transparent with its military expenditure, and there's absolutely no waste of tax payer money at all.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/03/1 ... nse-Budget

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-p ... LQ20131118

Admittedly though there's waste pretty much anywhere the government spends money. Hell, there's waste anywhere money is spent.

And knowing how people work, if you reduced the budget the waste would still be wasted and the actual properly spent money would go down, axing jobs.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Right; the money being spent ends up employing a shitton of people. If you massively slashed that it would be a huge surge in unemployment.

Undoubtedly, but that is beside the point. The real issue is whether we are spending the government's funds in an efficient manner that most benefits society at large, not one particular segment of it. So, for example, if you slashed the military's budget by 25% and re-directed the money toward infrastructure, you would undoubtedly see a decrease in military and military contractor unemployment, but you would also undoubtedly see an increase in employment related to infrastructure construction. Moreover, the infrastructure construction is likely to benefit society more than the military spending. (In other words, is it better for the government to spend tax dollars building: (1) tanks, airplanes, drones, and bombs; or (2) bridges, roads, railways, electricity grids, and high speed internet infrastructure? My vote is with option 2...)

[Fragems]

What we need is to slash the military and implement a new "New Deal" and/or bring back tariffs to revitalize the manufacturing industry.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I don't know...I think that tariffs are generally a bad idea for a lot of reasons, and I don't think American workers are willing to do the sort of manufacturing jobs that were here in the 19th century (and exist abroad now). Improved energy technology will very likely bring a lot of manufacturing back to the United States regardless of whether we institute tariffs, but those jobs - predictably - will be largely automated and will not account for the percentage of the work force that they did 100 years ago.

[Ack]

Right; the money being spent ends up employing a shitton of people. If you massively slashed that it would be a huge surge in unemployment.

Undoubtedly, but that is beside the point. The real issue is whether we are spending the government's funds in an efficient manner that most benefits society at large, not one particular segment of it. So, for example, if you slashed the military's budget by 25% and re-directed the money toward infrastructure, you would undoubtedly see a decrease in military and military contractor unemployment, but you would also undoubtedly see an increase in employment related to infrastructure construction. Moreover, the infrastructure construction is likely to benefit society more than the military spending. (In other words, is it better for the government to spend tax dollars building: (1) tanks, airplanes, drones, and bombs; or (2) bridges, roads, railways, electricity grids, and high speed internet infrastructure? My vote is with option 2...)

What you're talking about is procurement, which constitutes roughly 20% of the Department of Defense's budget. Roughly 25% goes to personnel, 10% to R&D, 5% to military construction, and about 40% to operational expenses and maintenance across all branches. It's worth noting that this is for the DoD. Other "military expenditures" fall under non-military organizations, such as Veteran's Affairs, Treasury Department expenditures related to military pensions, State Department facilitation of arms sales or military-related assistance, DHS spending, FBI counter-terrorism operations, some NSA operations, and Atomic Energy expenditures. DoD expenditure is only about 20% of the US total budget. The rest of the total military spending stat is actually from discretionary budgets, which typically go about 50% to the military.

Surprisingly, while we reached a record amount of military spending in 2010, it was also a little over 1% less of our total GDP than at our highest points during the final years of the Cold War. Right now we consider 4% of total GDP to be our max, and currently we are poised at 3.5%. The lowest expenditure percentage when compared to GDP we have seen since recording these stats is 3%, which was roughly 1999-2001. The highest was WWII, at over 35%.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Right; the money being spent ends up employing a shitton of people. If you massively slashed that it would be a huge surge in unemployment.

Undoubtedly, but that is beside the point. The real issue is whether we are spending the government's funds in an efficient manner that most benefits society at large, not one particular segment of it. So, for example, if you slashed the military's budget by 25% and re-directed the money toward infrastructure, you would undoubtedly see a decrease in military and military contractor unemployment, but you would also undoubtedly see an increase in employment related to infrastructure construction. Moreover, the infrastructure construction is likely to benefit society more than the military spending. (In other words, is it better for the government to spend tax dollars building: (1) tanks, airplanes, drones, and bombs; or (2) bridges, roads, railways, electricity grids, and high speed internet infrastructure? My vote is with option 2...)

What you're talking about is procurement, which constitutes roughly 20% of the Department of Defense's budget. Roughly 25% goes to personnel, 10% to R&D, 5% to military construction, and about 40% to operational expenses and maintenance across all branches. It's worth noting that this is for the DoD. Other "military expenditures" fall under non-military organizations, such as Veteran's Affairs, Treasury Department expenditures related to military pensions, State Department facilitation of arms sales or military-related assistance, DHS spending, FBI counter-terrorism operations, some NSA operations, and Atomic Energy expenditures. DoD expenditure is only about 20% of the US total budget. The rest of the total military spending stat is actually from discretionary budgets, which typically go about 50% to the military.

Surprisingly, while we reached a record amount of military spending in 2010, it was also a little over 1% less of our total GDP than at our highest points during the final years of the Cold War. Right now we consider 4% of total GDP to be our max, and currently we are poised at 3.5%. The lowest expenditure percentage when compared to GDP we have seen since recording these stats is 3%, which was roughly 1999-2001. The highest was WWII, at over 35%.

The language in parentheses was meant only to provide an example. The fact remains that over 50% of our nation's discretionary spending budget is allocated to the military, and in my opinion, allocating a significant percentage of that budget to something else would likely be extremely beneficial.

[ElkinFencer10]

If we took that money and put it into investments in infrastructure and education, we'd mitigate the unemployment problem. I'm also not talking about cutting salaries; the cuts need to be made to wasteful contracts with the MIC and "lost" weapons and equipment. Also, keep in mind the inherent ideological differences when I comment; I'm a pseudo-isolationist. I don't think we should abstain from getting involved anywhere for any reason, but I do think it needs to be a DIRECT threat to the United States, a treaty obligation, or a mission sanctioned by the UNSC if we're going to commit American lives and American money to a fight.

Also also, let other people pay for their own shit. Israel ain't as broke as they want us to think; they can pay for their own god damn Iron Dome.

[Sarge]

I'm all about spending lots of money on the military, but there's no question there's waste that can be eliminated there. My Dad served in the Army for most of his life, and he said they could easily absorb a 10% cut if they applied it right. Beyond that is probably asking a bit much. And even though there's waste in the military, one could turn right around and say there's a ton of waste in the programs that folks talk about cutting the military to fund.

As far as cutting military spending in general, with other regimes making their usual despotic overtures, I think we need our military to be able to project force wherever we may potentially need to. Not for the sake of it, though. For goodness sake, if we don't have a compelling national interest there, then NO. And I'm completely onboard with not being the UN's peacekeeping force.

Pertaining to Israel, I think they've got a pretty good amount of money, but I'd also argue, as our only true ally in the region, that we should continue to support them.

[jp1]

I'm all about spending lots of money on the military, but there's no question there's waste that can be eliminated there. My Dad served in the Army for most of his life, and he said they could easily absorb a 10% cut if they applied it right. Beyond that is probably asking a bit much. And even though there's waste in the military, one could turn right around and say there's a ton of waste in the programs that folks talk about cutting the military to fund.

As far as cutting military spending in general, with other regimes making their usual despotic overtures, I think we need our military to be able to project force wherever we may potentially need to. Not for the sake of it, though. For goodness sake, if we don't have a compelling national interest there, then NO. And I'm completely onboard with not being the UN's peacekeeping force.

Pertaining to Israel, I think they've got a pretty good amount of money, but I'd also argue, as our only true ally in the region, that we should continue to support them.

I have my own opinions about military funding. However, it is shameful how much, or rather how little, is allocated to caring for veterans and their families. Especially those that are lost to active duty. One could make an argument about misappropriation of funds on that basis alone in my opinion.

[Exhuminator]

However, it is shameful how much, or rather how little, is allocated to caring for veterans and their families. Especially those that are lost to active duty. One could make an argument about misappropriation of funds on that basis alone in my opinion.

Now this is something I agree with 100%. PTSD is at epidemic levels alone in this country just for starters. It'd be nice to see far more money appropriated towards treatment of it.