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Perhaps United States should spend this money elsewhere?

gulfa

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The United States Military expenditure as % of central government expenditure is 18.2 % making it the 10th country in the world. Isn't this a bad use of the tax payers money, perhaps this money should be used elsewhere in research, education, encouraging entrepreneurship, healthcare... etc...

Example Germany spends only 4.4 % of its central government expenses on military, France 4.7 %, Japan 5.2 %....

To see all the countries list, Military Expenditure by country as a percentage of the central government expenditure

Not to mention that United States wars on non american soil is costing the lives of American soldiers, hard earned money of the american civilians and increasing the world's hate to United States...

what do you think?
 
The United States Military expenditure as % of central government expenditure is 18.2 % making it the 10th country in the world. Isn't this a bad use of the tax payers money, perhaps this money should be used elsewhere in research, education, encouraging entrepreneurship, healthcare... etc...

Example Germany spends only 4.4 % of its central government expenses on military, France 4.7 %, Japan 5.2 %....

To see all the countries list, Military Expenditure by country as a percentage of the central government expenditure

Not to mention that United States wars on non american soil is costing the lives of American soldiers, hard earned money of the american civilians and increasing the world's hate to United States...

what do you think?

Before reducing spending on something that is mandated by our Constitution, it might be better to reduce spending on the myriad other stuff the government spends money on that is NOT mandated by the Constitution.

Or...you could try to amend the Constitution to remove the military spending mandate. You might even get a lot of liberal support for that.
 
Before reducing spending on something that is mandated by our Constitution, it might be better to reduce spending on the myriad other stuff the government spends money on that is NOT mandated by the Constitution.

Or...you could try to amend the Constitution to remove the military spending mandate. You might even get a lot of liberal support for that.

Does the constitution say you need to spend almost one fifth of your government money on Military?
 
Every empire needs an army. ;)
 
Does the constitution say you need to spend almost one fifth of your government money on Military?

Does the Constitution say we should give a certain percentage of our income to the government in taxes? Does it say that money should be transfered from one citizen to another for the purposes of living expense? Does it say that the government should spend money on education, healthcare or an other personal service?
 
The United States Military expenditure as % of central government expenditure is 18.2 % making it the 10th country in the world. Isn't this a bad use of the tax payers money, perhaps this money should be used elsewhere in research, education, encouraging entrepreneurship, healthcare... etc...

Example Germany spends only 4.4 % of its central government expenses on military, France 4.7 %, Japan 5.2 %....

To see all the countries list, Military Expenditure by country as a percentage of the central government expenditure

Not to mention that United States wars on non american soil is costing the lives of American soldiers, hard earned money of the american civilians and increasing the world's hate to United States...

what do you think?

I think they should use it to pay down some debt and fund a plan to reduce the size of government meaningfully.
 
I think they should use it to pay down some debt and fund a plan to reduce the size of government meaningfully.

Fund a plan?
 
Fund a plan?
Yes. It wouldn't cost much. I'd be happy to take $100,000 for the job with a guarantee of of reducing spending by $100 billion assuming congressional approval.
 
Yes. It wouldn't cost much. I'd be happy to take $100,000 for the job with a guarantee of of reducing spending by $100 billion assuming congressional approval.

We already pay politicians to do this, so I'm not paying for an extra plan.
 
Does the constitution say you need to spend almost one fifth of your government money on Military?

You get what you pay for.

We can either have the best military in the world...or we can have a huge percentage of our population dependent upon government entitlements.


Or...we can do as we are doing right now: We have both and we have to borrow money to pay for all of it.
 
You get what you pay for.

We can either have the best military in the world...or we can have a huge percentage of our population dependent upon government entitlements.

The Left would prefer the latter.
 
We already pay politicians to do this, so I'm not paying for an extra plan.
Is that what we pay politicians to do? I've never seen them do it.
 
..or both, which is precisely what we have done for decade after decade.

Indeed, we have funded the entire world with our currency.


You get what you pay for.

We can either have the best military in the world...or we can have a huge percentage of our population dependent upon government entitlements.
 
You get what you pay for.

We can either have the best military in the world...or we can have a huge percentage of our population dependent upon government entitlements.


Or...we can do as we are doing right now: We have both and we have to borrow money to pay for all of it.

That could have been probably sustainable if only we had a law to prevent our companies from outsourcing every single job to India and China. In a very long time, I haven't seen any US branded product which is actually manufactured in USA (Be it Nike, Adidas, Dell, HP, Apple... oh and worst of all the call centers ).
 
That could have been probably sustainable if only we had a law to prevent our companies from outsourcing every single job to India and China. In a very long time, I haven't seen any US branded product which is actually manufactured in USA (Be it Nike, Adidas, Dell, HP, Apple... oh and worst of all the call centers ).

sigh...

Sorry, dude, but whether any products are actually made in the US anymore or not has absolutely nothing to do with the topic of this thread or with my comments in this thread.

Go peddle your made in usa ideas somewhere else.
 
First of all, these kinds of international statistics on military spending are completely meaningless because the defense budgets of countries are not really comparable in what they include and what not. Also, don't forget that a very large percentage of US military spending goes to salaries. It so happens that the US pays its military a lot better than 95% of other countries.

This being said, it is always a good idea to evaluate government spending. Personally I believe the Us could realize substantial savings by reducing the number of military bases overseas and through greater efficiency in its military programs. But there are many other items in the Federal budget where much larger and better savings could be realized too.
 
First of all, these kinds of international statistics on military spending are completely meaningless because the defense budgets of countries are not really comparable in what they include and what not. Also, don't forget that a very large percentage of US military spending goes to salaries. It so happens that the US pays its military a lot better than 95% of other countries.

This being said, it is always a good idea to evaluate government spending. Personally I believe the Us could realize substantial savings by reducing the number of military bases overseas and through greater efficiency in its military programs. But there are many other items in the Federal budget where much larger and better savings could be realized too.

Very good suggestion. I've made similar suggestions as well when ever leftists spout off about reducing military spending so they can spend money elsewhere...as this thread does.

The problem, though, is that leftists won't EVER support reducing any government spending other than military spending and they will NEVER support reducing overall government spending. They only want to increase total government spending.
 
First of all, these kinds of international statistics on military spending are completely meaningless because the defense budgets of countries are not really comparable in what they include and what not. Also, don't forget that a very large percentage of US military spending goes to salaries. It so happens that the US pays its military a lot better than 95% of other countries.

And this is something that those on the far side will never realize.

Let's just use China as an example.

In the US, your average service member after they finish their school will make around $1,700 per month base pay. And if they are already or want to get married, then they get even more pay, and even more pay on top or housing on post (which includes all utilities). Then there is the medical care, for them, their spouse, and any kids they may have. If they have more kids, then they get bigger quarters. And after spending 4 years in, they are making around $2,300 a month base pay.

But the big expense has been their families.

Now compare this to China. Where you can't get married until after you leave the military (unless you apply for careerist status). You also can't have as many kids as you want, Chinese family size laws. And what is the base pay for your normal Private in the Chinese military?

About $35 a month.

Also in the US we contract damned near everything. No more KP, we pay civilians to wash our dishes in the chow hall. No more "mowing detail", some civilian "landscaper" does that. Heck most of the time we do not even guard our own gates or patrol our own bases, "Civilian Security" does it for us.

Heck, I have even lived in barracks with maid service!

Our military budget has been hopelessly bloated since the mid 1990's, when the Clinton cuts required the military turn over a lot of jobs to civilians because of the lack of excess manpower to do some jobs. And now it is biting us in the butt, as we can't just cancel the contract for political reasons (many of them are union positions). And good luck to getting some politician to go to a few thousand union workers that they are being let to so the military can take over the job again.
 
don't forget that a very large percentage of US military spending goes to salaries. It so happens that the US pays its military a lot better than 95% of other countries.

Very good point Artevelde, I agree

And this is something that those on the far side will never realize.

Let's just use China as an example.

In the US, your average service member after they finish their school will make around $1,700 per month base pay. And if they are already or want to get married, then they get even more pay, and even more pay on top or housing on post (which includes all utilities). Then there is the medical care, for them, their spouse, and any kids they may have. If they have more kids, then they get bigger quarters. And after spending 4 years in, they are making around $2,300 a month base pay.

But the big expense has been their families.

Now compare this to China. Where you can't get married until after you leave the military (unless you apply for careerist status). You also can't have as many kids as you want, Chinese family size laws. And what is the base pay for your normal Private in the Chinese military?

About $35 a month.

Also in the US we contract damned near everything. No more KP, we pay civilians to wash our dishes in the chow hall. No more "mowing detail", some civilian "landscaper" does that. Heck most of the time we do not even guard our own gates or patrol our own bases, "Civilian Security" does it for us.

Heck, I have even lived in barracks with maid service!

Our military budget has been hopelessly bloated since the mid 1990's, when the Clinton cuts required the military turn over a lot of jobs to civilians because of the lack of excess manpower to do some jobs. And now it is biting us in the butt, as we can't just cancel the contract for political reasons (many of them are union positions). And good luck to getting some politician to go to a few thousand union workers that they are being let to so the military can take over the job again.


Very interesting, thanks for sharing
 
"Perhaps United States should spend this money elsewhere?"

What money. The US government doesn't have any money it borrows about 1/2 of what it spends. The idea would be not to spend it at all, not spend it elsewhere.
 
The military's budget does need to be reduced. I say anywhere from 33-40%. Does this money need to be spent elsewhere? No. It doesn't need to be spent at all. We also don't need to spend money on the Dept. of Commerce. We don't need to give free goodies to Corporate Agriculture which is where the overwhelming majority of the Farm Bill goes.

We don't need:

USADF
ATFE
USCIRF
DEA
EDA
EEOC
Institute for Peace (that's an epic fail)
MBDA
Office of Government Ethics(another epic fail)
OWLC
OPIC
PCPFS
RBCP
TDA
USAID


These are just a few that can get the chop from a quick glance, I guarantee more can be found and trimmings can be made on what's left.

And NONE of it can be better spent elsewhere, it doesn't need to be spent at all.
 
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