[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
I mean I honestly don’t get it. The right has so many people who talk about inefficient government and government waste. Yet they IGNORE it when it comes to defense. [/quote]
I know you weren’t addressing me; however, my take is that defense spending is one of the few legitimate areas where the government is authorized by the people to spend money. So, imo, they should.
How much is another matter altogether.
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I’m not against defense spending, I just honestly don’t get it. The right goes nuts over so many things the government does but gets this huge hard on over the military as if examining this area is something that can’t happen. And the idea that we need more money in this area is doubly mind blowing to me. [/quote]
I mean, I get you perspective. To me it is equal mind blowing that some on the left think we need to spend more money on welfare (not saying you just giving an example). So, I get the frustration.
My only point is that of all the things we spend money on the military is one we should actually spend money on. I concede we could spend less I just don’t understand why it’s always the focal point of spending reduction (well I do get it. It’s because old people vote in numbers).
I look at it this way. I have a $3,500/month mortgage (social security), a $800/month car note (medicare), $5,000 in credit card debt (medicaid), and a $30/month 2-DVD Netflix membership (defense spending). Cutting my 2-DVD membership to a 1-DVD membership doesn’t actually address my real problem.
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It’s a huge piece of the U.S. budget though. It’s not like cutting your 2 DVD membership to one. We’re talking about 1/5 of what we spend on. [/quote]
Sure, but even if we cut 100% of the military budget, we’d still be overspending and we’d still be in a deficit.
I agree that we need to be more efficient in our military spending. To me this looks like every other corporate optimization look, only with the largest organization on earth (ok, in our country). However this is distinct from simply spending “less”.
There is so much waste in the system that if we simply spend “less” we will decrease our effectiveness at R/D, and training as a fighting force because we haven’t cut the waste out of the system, we’ve just decreased the amount of money we put into the wasteful process. As most engineers will tell you, efficiency is the name of the game in most cases. You want it to cost less? More efficient design, power use, etc. Simply cutting money going in doesn’t address the root problems either, but DOES in my opinion decrease our military’s ability to do its job in the long run.
This ends up probably spending “less” in the long run as well, but it’s a difference in approach and a vast difference in defensive capabilities, if you follow me.
Your comments on politicians are noted and agreed on.
I would favor freezing the military budget in real terms, possibly with a provision accounting for inflation year to year, and then embarking on a huge project to streamline the waste. Then I would cut the waste out and cut that from the budget. I would not favor active cuts until a solid, practical approach was in place to make sure we know exactly what and where to slice and dice.
Now, back on topic–this is incredibly disturbing. I don’t know the details on this but I don’t particularly need to. We’ve run wargames many times in the States, but never with Home states as potential adversaries.
Still, this news source and headline is sensational enough for my spidey sense to tingle and say “I wonder what the actual details of this wargame are, because this sounds like hack journalism”