The Budget.

[Deleted]

Foreign aid does buy you influence and good will on the international scene. I guess it's difficult to put a number on it, but it's not a complete loss.

if there is a choice between using the money to feed 3rd world populations, or our own population that can even afford to have a roof over their head in this country then it is a clear and obvious choice.

we should be looking after our own before looking after others.

[Zan15]

You just dredged up a whole list of things which are the concern of other departments.

It's not that hard to admit you were wrong.

"other departments" which is part of the military and military operations.
fighting two wars is not part of the military?
black ops off budget items is not part of the military?
CIA is not doing 99% military work?
Interest on debt caused by military budget, is not part of the military?

oh hey look we split them off into their own "department" so they are no longer a military expense.....i mean except one pays specifically for military benefits, but hey they are a separate department!!!

did not even include things that are in different "departments" like $26 billion for nuclear weapons, oh that's not military spending right?
what about the 9b in military aid to other countries?
what about the NSA? military, i sure would say so...."different department" spending about 53b a year.
$20.7 billion for the Military Intelligence Program (MIP),"different department"
Military retirement fund, outside of the VA and the DOD budget, 27b



please the "TRUE" military budget is way past 500b+ over china and will be for a long long time.

- - - Updated - - -

The CIA budget is $15 billion.

That's a little bit different than $100 billion.

And the VA budget is $186 billion.

And $100 billion "interest on the debt" is not caused by the military. It's $200 billion form all spending, most of it social in nature.

The black budget is $60 billion.

Additional funding for the War (aka the OCO budget) at the moment is $60 billion, only $20 billion of that is actual war related expenses though. The other $40 billion is a slush fund to get around the Budget Control Act.

Stop just making up numbers.

come on you are very well educated and versed on what is off DoD spending on the military. Really i was exaggerating, sure but lets not stop at what i listed above..and i won't exaggerate this time.


In the CIA bucket you can include NSA and other agencies in the Military Intelligence/National Intelligence Programs which sits around 53 billion dollars. So the two programs are close to 70 billion a year plus interest.

VA budget is 186 billion, which does not include the military retirement fund which is another 27b plus interest.

as far as the interest is concerned even if you take the 600b face figure of the so called military budget and its portion of the interest paid on debt, $375,632,204,975.65 for the rolling 9 months so far this year, it would represent 25% of the projected total. That would be 110-150 billion of the interest directly related to military spending.


26 billion for nuclear weapons, in energy dept budget.

5-9b in military aid to other countries

How about Department of Homeland Security, how much of that do you want to include in the military budget? 40-50-60%??


Like i said at the start, you seem very educated on the military. You know full well the budget vs the actual amount of money spent on the military are two vastly different beast no where near each other.

[Independent voter]

There will be a massive tax cut for the rich and well to do. Also businesses will have their taxes cut.

[Garnier Fructis]

please the "TRUE" military budget is way past 500b+ over china and will be for a long long time.

The tiny flaw in this reasoning is assuming that the Chinese, well known for cooking the books, aren't also spreading cost throughout various parts of government. Remember a while back when I said that most estimates on China's military budget put it way above the official number? That's because they do the same shit.

I'd be more than happy to do a fair comparison if we knew how the "TRUE" Chinese military budget. But we don't, so you pulling in everything and the kitchen sink makes it meaningless to say that we're past 500b+. What you're doing is akin to complaining about "TRUE" unemployment figures because comparison of equal metrics didn't stack up the way you wanted it to.

Oh, and as for the "long long time?" Yeah, their official (and hence unofficial) military budget has been increasing greatly over the years. Meanwhile, our military budgets have been experiencing either modest growth or negative growth between years. And if you guys are proposing we cut it further, then you're proposing that we help the Chinese close that gap faster.

[Zan15]

The tiny flaw in this reasoning is assuming that the Chinese, well known for cooking the books, aren't also spreading cost throughout various parts of government. Remember a while back when I said that most estimates on China's military budget put it way above the official number? That's because they do the same shit.

I'd be more than happy to do a fair comparison if we knew how the "TRUE" Chinese military budget. But we don't, so you pulling in everything and the kitchen sink makes it meaningless to say that we're past 500b+. What you're doing is akin to complaining about "TRUE" unemployment figures because comparison of equal metrics didn't stack up the way you wanted it to.

Oh, and as for the "long long time?" Yeah, their official (and hence unofficial) military budget has been increasing greatly over the years. Meanwhile, our military budgets have been experiencing either modest growth or negative growth between years. And if you guys are proposing we cut it further, then you're proposing that we help the Chinese close that gap faster.

you remind me of the 80's. same thing was said about the Russian threat.
They stopped trying to keep up and moved on, and what did we do? Create a new boogy man called China.


you don't feel that reducing our military budget will allow other countries to also reduce theirs while still maintaining their status? Why must it always be a race up? Economic power > military power yet we still feel the need to push military over economic.

[Garnier Fructis]

you don't feel that reducing our military budget will allow other countries to also reduce theirs while still maintaining their status? Why must it always be a race up? Economic power > military power yet we still feel the need to push military over economic.

And why exactly would, say, China reduce their military budget if we reduced ours? You know, we actually did reduce our budget one year, I believe from 2012 to 2013. Meanwhile, China continued their basically exponential growth in military budget.

Yes, economic power is likely more important. But economic and military power do not exist separately from each other. It's amazing what economic deals can be forged with a big ass gun pointed at peoples' heads.

Plus, since you brought up economic power, Trump basically pissed on our economic dominance of Asia Pacific by pulling us out of the TPP. So we're helping China pass us not only in terms of military, but economy as well.

[Deleted]

Cut military spending by 90%, raise taxes on the superrich. Problems solved.

[Vankrys]

And why exactly would, say, China reduce their military budget if we reduced ours? You know, we actually did reduce our budget one year, I believe from 2012 to 2013. Meanwhile, China continued their basically exponential growth in military budget.

Yes, economic power is likely more important. But economic and military power do not exist separately from each other. It's amazing what economic deals can be forged with a big ass gun pointed at peoples' heads.

Plus, since you brought up economic power, Trump basically pissed on our economic dominance of Asia Pacific by pulling us out of the TPP. So we're helping China pass us not only in terms of military, but economy as well.

are you really seriously scared of a possible military aggression from China?

The biggest threat from China is not military, it's economic.

[Garnier Fructis]

are you really seriously scared of a possible military aggression from China?

The biggest threat from China is not military, it's economic.

To the US? Nah. But to various small nations in Asia Pacific, with whom we trade with, and collectively are one of the major economic centers of the world? Yes.

[Elegiac]

are you really seriously scared of a possible military aggression from China?

The biggest threat from China is not military, it's economic.

As was said, the two are not mutually exclusive.

The military threat is less to the United States and more to its bloc entities in the region, namely Japan and South Korea.

[Glorious Leader]

I wouldnt cut a fucking thing and i would only increase taxes primiarily on the wealthiest as a means of correcting redistrubiting income. This fear mongering over the budget ceiling is counter productive.

[Hiricine]

You would screw over people who paid for decades into a program that is not only self-funded till 2030 without issue, but has been mismanaged and borrowed against?

Well the goal wouldnt be to save the programs, it would be to decrease their share of the budget to allow for spending on other things (like paying off the debt, hypothetically). If you're trying to fix the budget you'd shoot for the biggest targets, and since the 2 are well over 50% itd be worth going for them.

The fairest move would be to increase the retirement age slowly (like a few weeks each year) so that no one gets blindsighted by it. Right now SS/Medi are over 50% of payments but much less than that in taxes, you could probably get more revenue and get away with it politically decreasing the payroll tax and increasing general rates across the board by a lesser amount to capture more revenue.

[Hiricine]

As said the program is solvent till 2030 as it stands today with no increase in age or beinfits, and you can keep it more solvent by raising the cap on the amount that is taxable. I think it's around 120k right now anything over that isn't taxed. I believe the rate hasn't kept pace and that is where the issue lies. Well that and keeping congress's hand out of the penny jar.

If you're looking at a grossly underfunded budget, you'd want to ideally find a way to shrink the biggest parts and increase the revenues. If I were to be hired to fix the budget and screw the politics, that would be my first target.

Politically everyone talks about fixing the programs which do have some simple fixes, but if your goal is to fix the budget shrinking these programs and using the extra revenue to balance deficit more is one of the best ways to do it.

[araine]

higher taxes and a 35-40% cut on the military budget over a 5 year period should be easily achieved if we scrap the insane wasteful spending that goes on in the military.

Doing this and making sure we get medicare for all in place should mean we get tons of money to soon be debt free and all this while we get a better country for everyone win win is what they call that for you right wingers out there

- - - Updated - - -

Higher taxes only work so far, because they discourage work that, in turn, pays a percentage in as tax. Because of this, it is often budget-neutral or even beneficial to lower taxes, rather than heighten them. As for the military, the general western thought, certainly of the left, has always been to lessen spending on the military. Often, the reasons given have to do with peace. We're at peace, so why should we have a military? We want to maintain peace, so we should cut the military. Ignoring, of course, that making yourself less dangerous only works so far. Making yourself a threat can be just as necessary, and is also an excellent way to make people think twice, pick someone else (or none at all) instead.

There's arguments either way, for both of the issues you raised. Of course, given your categorical statement on them, I'm fairly sure you're unlikely to listen to anyone who doesn't agree with your political leanings, but whatever.

having a defense budget that is 10 times the next 10 countries combined budget is just insane and if you cant see how much fat you can trim there without any negative consequences i dont know how to best describe wasteful spending since that is the definition of wasteful spending.

[Garnier Fructis]

having a defense budget that is 10 times the next 10 countries combined budget is just insane and if you cant see how much fat you can trim there without any negative consequences i dont know how to best describe wasteful spending since that is the definition of wasteful spending.

Simply cutting the budget is not the same as trimming the fat.

And why not call for optimization across the board? Bad management exists throughout the other > 80% of the pie as well, but it's always the military that needs to get leaner, it seems.

[Spectral]

You just dredged up a whole list of things which are the concern of other departments.

It's not that hard to admit you were wrong.

Filing military/defense spending into other departments doesn't actually make it no military/defense spending. It'd be a hell of an accounting trick if it did, but the US literally outspends the full military/defense budget of every country other than China just on intelligence.

I am very comfortable with across the board stabilization of these budgets, potentially with minor cuts. If our overall military machine is incapable of maintaining supremacy an ~1%/year drawback over the next 10 years, they're much worse at their jobs than I think they are.

- - - Updated - - -

Simply cutting the budget is not the same as trimming the fat.

And why not call for optimization across the board? Bad management exists throughout the other > 80% of the pie as well, but it's always the military that needs to get leaner, it seems.

The way to drive optimization is inherently by telling the leadership, "you have X% less now". By all means, let the experts decide what they can do without. If they literally can't find anything they can do without, it's time for new leadership.

[Garnier Fructis]

Filing military/defense spending into other departments doesn't actually make it no military/defense spending. It'd be a hell of an accounting trick if it did, but the US literally outspends the full military/defense budget of every country other than China just on intelligence.

Sort of covered that in the rest of our conversation.

- - - Updated - - -

The way to drive optimization is inherently by telling the leadership, "you have X% less now". By all means, let the experts decide what they can do without. If they literally can't find anything they can do without, it's time for new leadership.

Or they go down the third path, which is to just do everything worse.

[Spectral]

Or they go down the third path, which is to just do everything worse.

Then they're fuck ups. Replace them. I promise the military isn't operating at absolute maximum possible potential presently.

Seriously, is your genuine belief that a 1% cut would just be too sharp and we'd all be imperiled if it happened? Shit, I'm pretty confident that I could cut it by 10% without any real downside, but I'm generally a fan of the status quo and tinkering in small ways.

[Garnier Fructis]

Then they're fuck ups. Replace them. I promise the military isn't operating at absolute maximum possible potential presently.

Seriously, is your genuine belief that a 1% cut would just be too sharp and we'd all be imperiled if it happened? Shit, I'm pretty confident that I could cut it by 10% without any real downside, but I'm generally a fan of the status quo and tinkering in small ways.

I didn't say that a 1% cut would be too sharp. The guy I was responding to offered up a 35-40% cut over 5 years, which is just a tiny bit more than 1%.

[Spectral]

I didn't say that a 1% cut would be too sharp. The guy I was responding to offered up a 35-40% cut over 5 years, which is just a tiny bit more than 1%.

Yeah, that's probably not feasible. Like I said, I'm a status quo guy.

We do spend an absolute shitload though and a huge amount of it is wasted. Just not picking retarded fights would save an impressive amount of money.