Author Topic: Republicans talk about shrinking govt; pass 0.7 trillion dollar defense budget  (Read 2329 times)

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Offline rumborak

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Err, OK.

https://m.cnn.com/primary/wk_article?articleId=urn:newsml:CNN.com:20120518:house-defense-bill:1&branding=&category=cnnd_politics&pagesize=10

I guess not surprising, given 1.4 million people in the military need to be paid.
Given the US population of 300 million, that makes you shell out ~2,000 this year for this.

rumborak
« Last Edit: May 18, 2012, 09:46:37 PM by rumborak »
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Offline XJDenton

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When they talk about shrinking government, they mean the other 2% that isn't stuff they have vested interests in.
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Offline Scheavo

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Reminds me of a picture I saw in my school newspaper a couple of years ago... a guy wearing an ARMY t-shirt, who was complaining about big-government.


Offline XJDenton

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Got a way to eliminate the deficit: eliminate the defense budget for a year. NOt sure how well that would go down in congress.
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Offline Scheavo

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That really wouldn't be a good thing at all, for anyone.

Offline TL

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Remember, this is the party that praises Reagan, and is supposedly in favor of cutting spending, in spite of the fact that when Bush Sr. left office, he and Reagan had created 3/4 of the US debt at that point.

Basically, they're against the deficit if Democrats do it, but if Republicans do it to increase the defense budget and cut taxes on the wealthy, it's fine.

Offline GuineaPig

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People try and ignore that massive stimulus budgets get passed in the United States every year.
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Offline kirksnosehair

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I guess this op-ed fits here.  I happen to agree with it 100%

Offline j

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Definitely hypocrisy, but this kind of cherry-picking:

Basically, they're against the deficit if Democrats do it, but if Republicans do it to increase the defense budget and cut taxes on the wealthy, it's fine.

is hardly a Republican phenomenon.

-J

Offline ReaPsTA

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I don't know why the national defense budget is used as an example of excessive government spending.  National defense is one of the few things the government spends money on that it should be spending money on.

I'm not saying all the money is being used as efficiently as possible.  Just that a large national defense budget shouldn't be anything to be offended by.
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Offline Scheavo

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I'm not saying all the money is being used as efficiently as possible.  Just that a large national defense budget shouldn't be anything to be offended by.

The amount of corruption regarding our defense budget is appalling. If you read the report, you'll see that Republicans are spending more money than even the Defense Secretary thinks is necessary, and on things he doesn't think are worth it. Why are we upgrading tanks, when we pretty much don't use tanks anymore, and there isn't any foreseeable conflict where we would even need to use tanks?

Besides, you could half the defense budget, and it would still be large. This isn't necessarily about having a large military budget, it's about the fact that it's growing, and growing, and Republicans don't want to pay for it. They won't raise taxes to pay for this budget, they'll actually decrease taxes and make the deficit worse. I have a feeling there's some sinister thought process going on, as in, increase the deficit even more, so that they can try and get rid of the social programs they don't like, even though the social programs aren't responsible for the debt.

Quote
is hardly a Republican phenomenon.

If Senate Republicans wouldn't filibuster everything, we'd have seen the deficit reduced. There has been more than one fair and moderate proposal, but Mitch McConnell stated job isn't to do what's good for the country, it's to ensure Obama doesn't win re-election. That means, he won't let anything pass that's good for the country, becuase that would be good for Obama. Obama put cuts and adjustments to social security and medicare on the table, he got attacked by some Democrats for it, and Republicans basically just ignored it, becuase, ya know, can't let Obama get anything done.

Aside from that, Democrats agreed to a deal that was 90% budget cuts, and 10% tax increases, and Republicans turned away from this, even though it was everythign they demanded.

Add that to the fact that the last Democratic President actually balanced the budget and gave us a surplus, and it most definitely is a Republican phenomenon.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2012, 04:20:30 PM by Scheavo »

Offline rumborak

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I don't know why the national defense budget is used as an example of excessive government spending.  National defense is one of the few things the government spends money on that it should be spending money on.

I'm not saying all the money is being used as efficiently as possible.  Just that a large national defense budget shouldn't be anything to be offended by.

Call me a hippie, but do you not see a problem with the necessity of employing 1.4 million people, and dedicating a quarter of your taxes, towards the ability to wage war?

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Offline ReaPsTA

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I'm not saying all the money is being used as efficiently as possible.  Just that a large national defense budget shouldn't be anything to be offended by.

The amount of corruption regarding our defense budget is appalling. If you read the report, you'll see that Republicans are spending more money than even the Defense Secretary thinks is necessary, and on things he doesn't think are worth it. Why are we upgrading tanks, when we pretty much don't use tanks anymore, and there isn't any foreseeable conflict where we would even need to use tanks?

Besides, you could half the defense budget, and it would still be large. This isn't necessarily about having a large military budget, it's about the fact that it's growing, and growing, and Republicans don't want to pay for it. They won't raise taxes to pay for this budget, they'll actually decrease taxes and make the deficit worse. I have a feeling there's some sinister thought process going on, as in, increase the deficit even more, so that they can try and get rid of the social programs they don't like, even though the social programs aren't responsible for the debt.

Not disagreeing that we spend money on defense in a way that is irresponsible and sometimes useless.  What I take issue with is the implication that all defense spending is inherently bad (more on this in a second).

Agree that the Republicans are being irresponsible.  Not just in the way you said, but if the military is so important to this country it should be encouraged through its budget to do things efficiently and effectively.  Michael Bay has many faults, but part of the reason he's an effective film director is that, relative to what gets on the screen, the budgets for his movies are surprisingly small.*  The U.S. government, by passing such an inflated budget, is encouraging the military to just spend rather than thinking about where the money goes.

I do have to ask, you don't consider social security and medicare social programs?

I don't know why the national defense budget is used as an example of excessive government spending.  National defense is one of the few things the government spends money on that it should be spending money on.

I'm not saying all the money is being used as efficiently as possible.  Just that a large national defense budget shouldn't be anything to be offended by.

Call me a hippie, but do you not see a problem with the necessity of employing 1.4 million people, and dedicating a quarter of your taxes, towards the ability to wage war?

rumborak

This is more the philosophical notion I was posting about.

My answer is no I don't.  If only because I'm a citizen of the U.S. and it's in my interest, I want the country to be powerful.  Having an effective military is a good way to do this.  I'm not saying everything we do with our military is perfect and that having a large military has no negative consequences, but I find that choice better than being under prepared militarily.  Iraq and Afghanistan have colored our collective perspective a bit in a bad way.  Generally, wars aren't expected until they happen.  Given this, I'd rather always be prepared.

---------

*To break this down a bit.  Transformers 3 costed 195 million dollars to make and Avatar costed 237 million dollars to make.  Transformers 3 DOES NOT look like it was only 82% as expensive as Avatar.  Also, remember that Transformers 3 was made later and the budget was subject to inflation, even if it was only a little bit.  Like I said, for all his faults, Michael Bay absolutely will not waste your money.
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Offline Scheavo

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I do have to ask, you don't consider social security and medicare social programs?

Until very recently, both of those programs ran surpluses. The only reason they can contribute at all to the deficit is because both parties continually raided their pensions funds to make up for other budgetary gaps.

Additionally, since 2000, their comparative costs in the budget have *not* risen. What has fallen is other sources of governmental revenue, i.e taxes. Ezra Klein mentioned the other day that about half of the money lost to the Bush Tax Cuts could close the gap in these social programs for years to come.

The reasons we have the debt we have now is: 1) Bush Tax Cuts, 2) Unfunded Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and 3) The recession causing a huge revenue slump.

Those reasons have nothing to do with the social programs. Yes, those social programs are expenditures, but they were set up to be pension funds, independently funded, and a whole bunch of other things which did not, in and of themselves, fail. If you look at what has changed n the US governments budget since 2000 - when we had a surplus - it is not those social programs. They are being used as a scape goat by conservatives to get rid of programs they don't like, for reasons other than their financial health.

*edit*

fixed a typo that, so it makes sense.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2012, 08:50:22 PM by Scheavo »

Offline rumborak

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I don't think Iraq and Afghanistan are outliers that wrongly color our notion.
My view of military is "when you arm yourself, you will sooner or later find a reason to use them." Because once you're armed your behavior changes. Once you no longer have the impression that a certain action will be met with an undesirable reaction, you are far more likely to engage in it. Look at the Iraq war: had the US not been armed to the brim, the willingness to go in there would have been much less, with the likely result of trying to find different solutions.
Long story short: The more you arm yourself, the more you invite the situations you are trying to prevent.

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Offline Super Dude

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It should be noted that this has been the most peaceful century in Western Europe ever, and their respective armies are miniscule compared to ours.
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As frequently happens, Super Dude nailed it.
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