21–30 of 70 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let's be clear. Being the world's military titan is not a desirable job. Someone has to fend off the Somali pirates, but it's not glamorous and everyone benefits equally from it (as in not just the US).
Yeah you're right the protection racket is not a glamorous job but someone's gotta do it.
In fiscal year 2015, US military spending was projected to account for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending , a total of $598.5 billion. Translation: they need even more money.
For another thing, many expenditures are mandatory rather than discretionary, for good reason. Peoples' social security checks shouldn't vary from year-to-year based on government finances. That doesn't mean that social security spending should be ignored when you're looking at the percentage of government spending that goes to the military.
Total government expenditures in the U.S. is $7.65 trillion. The military budget is less than 8% of that. We're on the higher side, but that's less than for example India or Singapore. As a percentage of GDP we're at 3.1%, which is again on the high side but not crazy out of line. France is at 2.3%, and the NATO target for Europe is 2%. In the early 1990s, France and UK were spending the same percentage of GDP as the U.S. is spending now (over 3%). I remember people talking about Seinfeld and Friends back then, but not about how the U.K. and France were crazy out-of-control with their military spending.
[flagged]
I can't be the only one noticing so much noise about China in American media. Is America really so scared of being number 2?
We already waste too much money in the United States trying to be the world police, and there's no good reason for it any more. We have too many of our own problems to deal with to waste so much money on that crap.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes just as it was righteous for Japan to assert itself over all of Asia. No it's isn't. And this will not be good for the world. The reason being that being a sleeping friendly giant is much better for your long term survival than being an asshole looking to assert themselves. Especially in a world in which other people exist to challenge you, and you are challenging them. Because then they will conspire against you…
Let's be clear. Being the world's military titan is not a desirable job. Someone has to fend off the Somali pirates, but it's not glamorous and everyone benefits equally from it (as in not just the US).
Honestly I don't see a problem with it. We already waste too much money in the United States trying to be the world police, and there's no good reason for it any more. We have too many of our own problems to deal with to waste so much money on that crap.
In fiscal year 2015, US military spending was projected to account for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending , a total of $598.5 billion. Translation: they need even more money.
In fiscal year 2015, US military spending was projected to account for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending , a total of $598.5 billion. Translation: they need even more money.
The United States spent $609 billion on defense last year. Surely it's possible to make the case for DOD cutbacks without misleading statistics.
In fiscal year 2015, US military spending was projected to account for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending , a total of $598.5 billion. Translation: they need even more money.
Both "federal" and "discretionary" are weasel qualifiers that attempt to make military spending look artificially large. For one thing, defense is one of the relatively few things the federal government is supposed to be doing--you would expect defense to account for a disproportionately large fraction of "federal" expenditures. (And it makes for misleading comparisons to countries with unified governments, where mil…
> For one thing, defense is one of the relatively few things the federal government is supposed to be doing
And "Defense" is a weasel qualifier that attempts to make military spending look artificially necessary. Most military expenditures are not for defensive purposes.
