Failing Government

[-JD-]

^The military budget is a big part of the problem. The US spends, I believe, more than the next 10 largest militaries combined. George W. Bush was the first president to not only go to war without raising a new tax, but actually cut taxes during wartime.

To make matters worse you have a Republican party who has been unprecedentedly obstructionist and taken this childish pledge for "no new taxes" in a time of enormous deficit. The populace is becoming so polarized that people are opposing healthcare for Americans while no one seems to mind spending billions upon billions of dollars to build other nations.

The debt has to be paid. Rather than taking money from the sick, the poor and children it seems most logical to cut from the military first. I doubt most people would even notice....

 

[Jeff Kleb]

While there is waste in the military and we are "spread too thin" overseas, remember that defense is an 'enumerated power' of the United States Constitution. Much of the other stuff - no matter how nice it may seem - is not.

One place we do not do enough for 'defense' is in protecting our border, which is CLEARLY a federal responsibility.

Just some food for thought.

 

[BrianSD_42]

We spend too much on defense. I'm with RP on this one.

Anyone who feels we can't cut defense spending, I suggest you look up the tactical payload capabilities of a Trident III missile. We are plenty safe. We could cut defense by 50% and we would still spend more than any other country in the world.

We spend money on defense and yet there is no money left for roads, bridges, schools, hospitals. I think it is time we re-align our priorities as a people. There is something wrong when the government cannot guarantee basic medicine and education for children but wastes trillions (with a T) on foreign nation building and conquests.

/rant.

 

[rebelbowtie]

^The military budget is a big part of the problem. The US spends, I believe, more than the next 10 largest militaries combined. George W. Bush was the first president to not only go to war without raising a new tax, but actually cut taxes during wartime.

To make matters worse you have a Republican party who has been unprecedentedly obstructionist and taken this childish pledge for "no new taxes" in a time of enormous deficit. The populace is becoming so polarized that people are opposing healthcare for Americans while no one seems to mind spending billions upon billions of dollars to build other nations.

The debt has to be paid. Rather than taking money from the sick, the poor and children it seems most logical to cut from the military first. I doubt most people would even notice....

This is completely asinine thing to say! Cut military budget when we've managed to piss off half the world by trying to act as global police. I can tell you never served or talked with anyone who has served, we (the armed forces) are so underfunded and underpaid.

There was a time in the recent past that we (the Coast Guard) didn't have a budget to fuel the fleet. We were stuck at the pier and told not to go on patrol unless basically someone's life depended on it. Does that sound like we have money to burn?

Part of the reason the public views military spending being inflated is because either they don't understand what it cost to run a military or they see the "spend down effect." The spend down is when they hold all of our money and tell us we can't use it, because (now I don't know this for certain) but my guess they don't know if funding will even be approved for the next fiscal year. Then once the budget gets approved they give us a gratuitous amounts money and tell us to spend it all in a short amount of time.

So you cut money, we either lose our equipment which is often broken or out dated. Or we can take a pay cut to personnel who are already below the poverty line. If you are enlisted and under the pay grade of E6 you are by the governments definition poor and qualify for all kinds of services like food stamps or WIC. Do you really want the people defending your freedom at home and abroad to sacrifice any more than they already have?

 

[rebelbowtie]

We spend too much on defense. I'm with RP on this one.

Anyone who feels we can't cut defense spending, I suggest you look up the tactical payload capabilities of a Trident III missile. We are plenty safe. We could cut defense by 50% and we would still spend more than any other country in the world.

We spend money on defense and yet there is no money left for roads, bridges, schools, hospitals. I think it is time we re-align our priorities as a people. There is something wrong when the government cannot guarantee basic medicine and education for children but wastes trillions (with a T) on foreign nation building and conquests.

/rant.

Weren't you prior service Navy? I am appalled you feel that way. You should know of the budget constraints I speak of.

 

[BrianSD_42]

Yes I was in the Navy, 6 years actually.

Part of being a military leader is having the ability to acknowledge that there is such a thing as TOO much war and TOO much military spending.

Once you acknowledge that a limit exists then it is time to talk about spending. Should it go up or down? Can we live safely with a smaller budget?

What you said about public perception of high military spending is incorrect. The spending is very high. Look at a pie chart of the US Budget, you can see how high it is.

AGAIN,

We spend money on defense and yet there is no money left for roads, bridges, schools, hospitals. I think it is time we re-align our priorities as a people. There is something wrong when the government cannot guarantee basic medicine and education for children but wastes trillions (with a T) on foreign nation building and conquests.

&

Anyone who feels we can't cut defense spending, I suggest you look up the tactical payload capabilities of a Trident III missile.

.

 

[priestsallore]

Here's my .02 ..

Personally, I feel we do need to have a new revolution. The people need to stand up for what we are now being cheated out of, and stop letting poli-tics and their bribery take over and dictate every action and freedom we take so much for granted. Our Constitution that our founding fathers (one of which is my xxxxx great grandfather, John Adams) declared, and fought for, is now slowly being ripped away and tossed into a shredder by the corporations and politicians that control our lives, in the most profound way. I believe We the People need to stand and take action, to bring down our failed system, and re-create it the right way, with new amendments, and also to bring back old ones, particularly concerning those vary banks who now owe everything to its' people.

For two, government spending -- The money that goes into those very politics, war games, banks, and the other bs, is what should be going to rejuvinate our educational system. I believe the things we need most to spend on heavily, is science and math, literature, the arts; basically create a new 'renosaince' (spellcheck). The other, is I believe we need to rejuvinate our military and defense spending... To those of you who have never driven through a deserted military base, that once held so many jobs and housed so many of our brothers and sisters, so see it all rot away, and have little life left in it.. It is heartbreaking. Kelly AFB for example, here in San Antonio. That and so many other bases were shut down, with more than 30-40,000 Army officers, and another 20,000 enlistedmen let go alone, mostly because of our budget cuts. Yes, we may be able to use our 'missiles' and 'nukes' to defend ourselves.. But without the men and women who voluntarily fight to protect this great nation, we have nothing.



For three, you want to pay our debt? It isn't by cutting military spending. It is paid by fixing our taxation bull**** that was originally messed up awhile back to begin with. The rich used to pay more than 30% of all of their wealth in taxes. Now? We, the lower/middle class do, and more. The rich? MAYBE a few %. Our deficet would be paid using about 3 things.. Legalize everything, put a heavy tax on it. Not only, would it eliminate the black market, but it would also enable more peace within our streets being able to defend ourselves with our guns, and also reduce all drug and alcohol consumption by atleast 70-80%. Heavily taxing all drugs like Marijuana alone, could eliminate our budget within 5 years. But do that, re-place our 30%+ tax on the rich and the corportations/banks, and lower our tax rate for lower/middle class. Problem solved in an ETA of a few years.

 

[RandyDaytona]

One place we do not do enough for 'defense' is in protecting our border, which is CLEARLY a federal responsibility.

A couple of points

There are laws already in place to do this, but political pressure is what keeps it from happening - always has been.

From a budgetary standpoint - while almost all federal agencies are under tight fiscal controls now, any agency with a nexus to border protection or homeland security had a RIVER of money flowing into it after 9/11 and up until around 2009. New border stations, new equipment, and scads of new employees were the marching orders from up above. Gave the public a warm-and-fuzzy to see new fences and more agents.

But going back to my first point: without allowing those folks to enforce the existing laws as written, it doesn't do much good.