The $600B question ...

From the Economist: The $600B question - excerpt:

Enough is enough - dammit!!! The Defense Budget confiscated 54% of the Discretionary Budget two years ago. See here.

If America can get off its binging on "more deadly toys for our boys" and reduce the DoD-spending to 30% of total-budget, maybe we could send our kids to a decent post-secondary school to "learn-a-living"?

As I sometimes tire of saying, more than 40% of today's high-schoolers will never obtain a post-secondary education - effectively consigning themselves to a very much below the median family-salary existence of around $53K annually (two workers) ...

 

Defense budget needs to be much bigger until we have missile defense against North Korea and Iran and jet fighter superiority over any battle field on which American kids might fight. If only liberals had listened to Reagan!

 

The FY2018 budget reflects about 19% of the total U.S. budget.
Mandatory spending consumes about 71.8% of the total budget, while discretionary spending consumes only about 27.9%

Perhaps we need to look into reducing/eliminating some mandatory spending,
We could probably reduce some defense spending by pulling out of Europe, allowing the EU to provide its own protection, but the way things are going we need to maintain the ability to protect the U.S. and most importantly those serving in our military, from any source of attack current/future foe.

 

Discretionary Budget Pie-chart (2016):


The DoD eats 54% of the effective/discretionary budget pie-chart - and Medicare/Health get 5% or less than one-tenth of the DoD-budget. (Ditto Education.)

Who wants to think the US has its funding priorities wrong, wrong, wrong?

Just me ... ?

 

FY 2017 President's Budget for HHS

$1,145,000,000,000 x 0.52 = $595,400,000,000

If military spending is $625,200,000,000
is $595.4 billion 1/10th of $625.2 billion?

Medicare and Social Security have their own funding mechanism and governing regulations on spending.

 

actually saving our kids from dying on the battlefield( remember Vietnam) and protecting against nuclear attack from madmen is not wrong wrong wrong and preserving America the last best hope for freedom on earth is not wrong wrong wrong!.

what is obviously wrong is liberalism

 

Simple man. If you end the conflict, you spend less. ISIS, the organization Obama helped create, is on the run 6 months in on Trump's Presidency. Pressure on Qatar and other Arab nations to solve this on their own and quit funding terrorist organizations (and liberal think tanks in America apparently, yes, the Muslim Brotherhood backers in Qatar gave lots of money to political organizations in the US, lots. Look it up and can start with Brookings Institute if you need help.) Obama gave anti Assad jihadists ammunition's to destroy Christians in Syria, creating the massive refugee crisis from there that you see today. Benghazi is a way bigger issue than many like to think, you should look at why it was blamed on a video in the first place, why it was swept under the rug by every major media organization and what the actual goal of the original plan was. You can start here, you won't believe it, but I do hope you dig. http://www.wnd.com/2015/01/benghazi-part-of-obama-plot-to-free-blind-sheik/

The globalists want the US at war with Russia. It's sad, because nobody wins that war. Sick.

 

We do need to cut the military budget. We can start by leaving NATO, leaving the UN, and leaving every other defense pact we have with other nations.

This way we no longer have troops in Japan, Korea, Europe, Iraq, Saudi and dozens of other countries. Plus the troops and contractors in those and other countries that support our forces.

 

If we're going to do any budget cutting it should be done on programs which redistribute money taken from the States allowing the States to eliminate the Federal middle man and acquire the necessary revenue within the State to be redistributed also within the State. The military is one of the few Federal budget items which the cost of funding must be funded collectively by all the States, and totally under the control of the Federal government.

 

Goodness - what pure, unfounded Replicant Ranting.

You are factually incorrect or biased on each and every one of your accusations above.

Moving Right Along ...

 

What you're failing to mention is that "discretionary spending" is only a part of the federal budget. There is also the "non-discretionary spending". Combined, you have a complete picture of federal spending.

Do you know how much of total federal spending is on defense? It's 15%.



Defense is a fundamental responsibility of the federal government, and they only spend 15% of the total budget on it. It's sort of an old trick to assert that defense uses up 54% of the discretionary spending budget, instead of telling how much it spends of the total budget, discretionary and non-discretionary combined.

The other thing I find disturbing is you framing your argument as though kids can't go to college because we spend too much on defense. And if only we spent less on defense, our kids could go to college.

Listen. If you want the federal government to pay for everyone's college tuition, here's an idea. Tax for it. Yup. Propose new taxes that pays for it. You could propose an income tax hike or maybe a national sales tax, but it has to be paid for. Ask America to put its money where its mouth is.

Cutting the military budget to pay for college tuition is just an unwise way to try to not have to pay for it. Everybody wants everything, but nobody wants to pay for it in this day and age. I find that attitude tiring. "Don't look at me to pay for it. Get someone else to do it."

 

I would just like to point out that if the Feds paid for all college, college would cost $300k a year for a second rate 4 year university.

 

Ha! This isn't the thread for it, but, on an appropriate thread a while back, I showed how it could be done. But it was at the state level, not the federal level. And it was based upon a model that already exists in every state, that being how we pay for K-12. I simply suggested that we extend that model 4 more years, and I gave an idea of what it would cost, how it would be paid for, and who would pay.

My philosophy on this is simple. It goes like this ... We are a rich nation. If we want something from government we can have it if we're willing to pay for it. If we're not willing to pay for it, we can't have it.

Cheers, Marine.

 

Better yet, let's add a progressive tax based upon the number of years of college attended and honorary degrees awarded.

 

A progressive tax on who? Everyone? The student?

Take a look at my post to Jimmy right above yours. That's basically how I think it could be done ... if we want to enough to pay for it.

 

The question is one purely of accounting methods.

So, at least acknowledge that the budget has two facets - one discretionary and another non-discretionary. This latter is thus because the expenditures are matters of laws passed by Congress, and are thus obligatory.

I am sure you understand also that Defense is "discretionary-spending" and not "obligatory-spending". Among obligatory-spending items are Retirement Payments and Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Veterans Health Administration but also payments that sustain the National Debt. Without which America would be quite simply "bankrupt". Uncle Sam must pay his debts or he will no longer be able to borrow funds, which makes that part of the budget non-discretionary.

We need not, however and if we wanted, spend 54% of all Discretionary Spending on the DoD. We need not be the world's policeman. As a nation, we chose to be.

And we should not pay such a monstrously high portion. Enough is enough - the DoD-budget is a give-away to BigBusiness*, just like upper-income taxation (that both Johnson and Reagan took down from the previous level of 90% to around 30%).

We can assure the nation's Defense on a budget half the present size. Now, you prove me wrong on that point ...

*You will find the DoD-budget (by "title") here. Note that fully 16% of the budget is "manpower" (the second largest component), whilst Operations and Maintenance is fully 42%. It would be interesting to see how much of the "Maintenance Budget" is also contracted to private-enterprise.

 

On taxpayers who benefited from government paid for college.
Actually I would be happiest to simply have the Federal government not be involved at all in education, leaving it totally to the States, local communities, parents and non parent citizens to determine how to fund and run their schools.

 

Yes, I know all this.

It is probably true that our nation could opt out of being a world power, and simply defend our shores for a lot less money. We could probably do away with the Army, Navy, and Marines altogether, and reduce the Air Force to just our nuclear missiles. We could point them in the direction of any potential enemy and probably keep them off our shores, I'd bet. The rest of the world would just be on its own.

This is the isolationist point of view.

My preference, however, is to remain as a world power. How we exert that power is certainly a topic that I have strong opinions on.

Operations and Maintenance and Logistics are what separate our military from 2nd and 3rd rate militaries around the world. It's not surprising to me that a lot of money goes into those things.

 

I agree with that. Cheers!

 

[QUOTE="Seth Bullock, post: 1067734449, member: 70]My preference, however, is to remain as a world power. How we exert that power is certainly a topic that I have strong opinions on.[/QUOTE]

That's an extravagance we can no longer afford.

Perhaps one day the Left will finally awaken the American middle-class to the tremendous rip-off that upper-income taxation provides for the simply- and super-rich thereby depriving them (of a National HealthCare System) and their children (of a free Tertiary Education).

But, as long as we remain befuddled and away from the polls on election day*, forget it. We're in for the more-of-the-same as we are getting now from Donald Dork.

I frankly could care less - I live in France and intend to remain here. (French TV did a report interviewing Americans living in Paris because Donald Trump was invited to the July 14 French Independence Day parade down the Champs Elysees. Four against and 1 four - the "one for" being the head of the French "Republican Club!")

*For all the pissing-'n-moaning in this forum about politics, we are amongst the worst voters on this planet (and certainly the worst of any developed nation). See here: OECD Voter Turnout Rates by Country. Look down at the bottom for the US.

 

Far too simplistic. To have something, you gotta want it.

And if you want it, you gotta afford it.

Therein lies the problem. The average post-secondary level student graduates not only with a degree but a $35K debt to repay. The degree is so expensive in the US (even with the state schools) that fully 45% of the today's high-school students will NOT obtain the necessary post-secondary schooling degree.

So, you will excuse me if I think you are being - uh, "flippant" ...

PS: If we were truly a "rich nation", we'd be able to afford free tertiary education for our young.

 

its never free its just paid for by others so that no net gain is possible. Liberals truly believe in magical govt

 

The above posts appear to contradict each other. In one you extol the value in terms of the greater resulting income while in the other you complain about the debt incurred which as you pointed out is about the same as the average new vehicle price in 2016 of around $34,000.

 

Not at state-run schools, which is a primary condition for subsidizing the post-secondary education. This was a condition of Sanders' proposal as incorporated into Hillary's electoral program as well.

There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER that what you say above should occur ...

 

When the govt starts paying for things, those things get more expensive. Just look at the relationship between college tuition and the ease of federal school loans.