World military spending in 2009 = $1.53 trillion. USA share = 43%

Quote from pspr:

We should quit defending the world unless they chip in their fair share. Let Europe fall to the Russians or the Iranians. Let Japan and S. Korea defend themselves. We can't afford to keep protecting them for nothing.

These countries enter into military alliances with the U.S. then just keep token armies assured that the U.S. will come protect them. We need to stop this nonsense.

I don't see Israel on your list, buddy.
 
I hate to butt into this thread without reading the whole discussion, but would just like to add that i believe that capitalism as we know it could be on its last legs due to the continued deterioration of the labor market and there being no obvious solution as private industry WILL NEVER HIRE AT A RAPID PACE AGAIN.

The way to fix the global economy is to end worldwide poverty and create a much larger base for our future house of cards. Streamlining our defense spending and using the extra money to start this program would be a huge start.

Cutting back on government spending now, imo, could lead to a huge depression. The way forward is intelligent spending that gives hope to Wall St. and begins the creation of a global consumer class. Anyway, sorry for the caps and butting in.
 
No problem, Mr. President. Feel free to stop by any time.

Quote from shbhanda:

I hate to butt into this thread without reading the whole discussion, but would just like to add that i believe that capitalism as we know it could be on its last legs due to the continued deterioration of the labor market and there being no obvious solution as private industry WILL NEVER HIRE AT A RAPID PACE AGAIN.

The way to fix the global economy is to end worldwide poverty and create a much larger base for our future house of cards. Streamlining our defense spending and using the extra money to start this program would be a huge start.

Cutting back on government spending now, imo, could lead to a huge depression. The way forward is intelligent spending that gives hope to Wall St. and begins the creation of a global consumer class. Anyway, sorry for the caps and butting in.
 
Quote from pspr:

No problem, Mr. President. Feel free to stop by any time.

If only he was forward-thinking enough as he presented himself during the election. Don't get me wrong the move from backward to neutral is forward enough for the first few years.
 
Quote from walter4:

I don't see Israel on your list, buddy.
You don't need to worry about the US defending Israel. Thanks to the Obama regime, Israel is on its own. In a small sense, they did it to themselves. A lot of Jews are leftists and voted for "Hussein".
 
Quote from shbhanda:

... The way forward is intelligent spending that gives hope to Wall St. and begins the creation of a global consumer class ...
From under what rock did you crawl from? There is no such thing as "intelligent spending" in the case of our Democrat regime. They quadrupled Republican spending and look! Our economy is much worse off.

Want an example of intelligent spending? The US military is buying relatively inexpensive Russian-built Mi-17 helicopters for the Afghan Air Corps. I'm sure glad the leftists and unions haven't infiltrated our US military. :D

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061805630_pf.html
 
Quote from Petsamo:

From under what rock did you crawl from? There is no such thing as "intelligent spending" in the case of our Democrat regime. They quadrupled Republican spending and look! Our economy is much worse off.

Want an example of intelligent spending? The US military is buying relatively inexpensive Russian-built Mi-17 helicopters for the Afghan Air Corps. I'm sure glad the leftists and unions haven't infiltrated our US military. :D

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061805630_pf.html

intelligent spending by government is not all about cost control. to me it is more about how to spend in ways that increase the velocity of the money doled out. for instance look at the the democratic program during the great depression: the Civilian Conservation Corp and try to find flaws with it using your rightist ideology.

The thing about government, is that it is a million different policies and each have to be evaluated independently. anyone that generalizes about government and even government's involvement in economics fails to understand how complex and interwined modern society and modern economics have become.
 
Quote from Petsamo:

You don't need to worry about the US defending Israel. Thanks to the Obama regime, Israel is on its own. In a small sense, they did it to themselves. A lot of Jews are leftists and voted for "Hussein".

What do you call the opposite of truth when what is stated is known to be untrue by the author of the statement?
 
My accounting is perfect. I will stick by the numbers I found on government and other websites.

you used the word 'estimated', used squiggles, and claimed the 2009 deficit was $2.4T- and when corrected you claim perfection.

This is focused on federal spending only since state and local govts cannot run deficits.

ever heard of muni bonds? been reading about california? Do you have any clue that states and localities contribute to medicaid and many other social welfare services? wow, and you have the kahunas to call me uninformed.

The constitution does not mandate 800B per year on defense. If so, how did Clinton only spend 300B per year?

The constitution mandates providing for the common defense. It does not mandate anything for social spending, ag subsidies, education, etc.

FY 2000 Defense was $359, but he wasn't fighting a war. Simple logic dictates that it must go up from there.

Funny you should bring something like that up after Obama's sudden deficit-busting increase in medicaid disguised as stimulus, sort funny you would never suggest we go back to Bill Clinton levels when it comes to that, eh?

Half the deficit right now= eliminate stimulus. It was supposed to be temporary anyway.


Your argument that defense is paid for first out of tax receipts, with everything else being debt, is completely ludicrous.

...and your argument that defense should last is completely sound? Income tax receipts are more than enough to cover defense and your blatant dishonesty to include all social welfare spending is either gross stupidity or gross dishonesty.

The taxes for social security and medicare are to pay for those programs, by law. The remaining ~2.4T is to be paid for by the remaining taxes. So since defense takes up 1/3 of the unfunded spending, it is responsible for 1/3 of the debt. The other programs you mentioned are responsible for the other ~1T in deficit spending. They are part of the unfunded part of spending too.


You apparently are unaware of income and corporate taxes, which should be for constitutionaly mandated programs like defense. Your 'unfunded spending' of 2.4T is made up and meaningless because you ignore the fact that medicare is in the red now as is medicaid and SSI. you ignore the massive unfunded future liabilities, you ignore health and human services, SCHIP, Medicare parts B-C, etc.

There is no way to refute my argument that defense spending is responsible for 500B per year in deficit, give or take rounding error.

I have twice.

So, instead of arguing, I will propose solutions. We need to decide what is absolutely needed to keep the country safe and win our present and future wars. All other defense spending on fancy projects that defend against threats we might face 20 years down the road needs to be cut.

oh, 'WE' need to decide, but then YOU proceeded to decide for me that we don't need to worry about threats 20 years down the road. Thanks but I can't work with people like you.

Cutting the deficit by 50% to 700B or 750B, depending on ones deficit estimate, is not enough.

Eliminate wasteful stimulus and bailouts, job done. Elimate ag subsidies, eliminate keeping 80 year olds on life support, eliminate saving crack babies... but I know those common sense savings would go right over your head and you'll blame it all on defense.

The deficit needs to be cut to500B. We make 1T worth of cuts as follows: Cut defense spending by 300B until the wars are won.

Oh yes, defense gets the ax first, never mind that the soldiers need actual weapons to fight with, just cut their budget and send them on their way. You really don't know how stupid and dangerous this suggestion is do you? You have no concept of overhead.

When the wars are won, cut another 100B from defense. Cut 500B from the remaining 1.6T of unfunded spending while the wars are fought. Once the wars are won, reduce this cut to 400B. Cut social security and medicare by 200B. Although these programs have run surpluses, they have to feel the pain, too.

SSI + medicare are not in surplus in either 2009 or 2010, but you will ignore that. No mention at all of medicaid, SCHIP, HHS, HUD, Stimulus, agriculture, education, etc.

completely biased and unrealistic


Deep cuts like these are the only way to save this country in my opinion. Obviously, it is doubtful they will happen. Congress had no problem increasing spending from 1.9T in the last budget under Clinton, to 3.1T in the last budget under Bush, to 3.8T in the last budget under Obama. Cutting spending on the other hand...

You mean deep cuts in defense because that is all you libs can imagine cutting, you could have saved a lot of time and just said that.
 
Quote from shbhanda:

intelligent spending by government is not all about cost control. to me it is more about how to spend in ways that increase the velocity of the money doled out. for instance look at the the democratic program during the great depression: the Civilian Conservation Corp and try to find flaws with it using your rightist ideology.
First of all, history books are authored by leftists, so they have a leftist bias. Second, the Democrats & Obama who are in charge are a bunch of radicals, and cannot be compared to old Democrats like JFK, who favored tax cuts.

So, the quadrupling of the deficit, did that "increase the velocity of the money doled out"?
 
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