America, and Wasteing Money.

[Adam Jensen]

America wastes money on defense.

This isn't news.

No jackass in congress has the guts to do anything about it.

[Jaxi]

We waste money all the time on practically anything.
Look at Yucca mountain. Look at Solyndra. Look at the California Border Protection Stations. The list is quite literally endless.

[obdigore]

Instead of putting billions of dollars towards creating jobs... Let's put billions of dollars into wars that never actually get fought. This way the weapons manufacturers and certain contractors make a killing while soldiers get killed.

Sweet deal for the US imo. owait...

You realize that the weapons manufacturers employ people, and so do the industries that provide the materials for those weapons, right? Technically government contracts to private companies is a good way to create jobs and return tax money to the economy.

---------- Post added 2012-02-21 at 11:27 PM ----------

Well I see what you're saying...but the whole "world conquest proportions" isn't really a stretch. The simple fact that it's 43%(courtesy of Wiki) of the entire world's defense budget gives it some validity.

The OP is right, millions of jobs could be created by cutting the defense budget. The idea that we need to spend that much money is ridiculous. The idea that Iran is a threat to the US is ridiculous. If we spent trillions on teaching, creating jobs, and boosting infrastructure, the US would be in a great position right now.

I fear we are becoming a wellfare state. Already I see many people living near me that refuse to get a job because their wellfare is roughly the same amount as a minimum wage job. I wouldn't and I don't think anyone else would either. I'm no sociologist, but people with no jobs and no responsibilities...IMO...they turn to drugs and crime. From what I can see out my windows - this is absolutely the case.

This is unacceptable. To simply stop providing these benefits would leave millions hungry and without shelter. On our current path however, the situation will not improve and only get worse.

However the idea of Uncle Sam giving so much money to people still pales in comparison to the military spending. The United States has nothing to fear unless we provoke a war. If the US was unjustly attacked, without provocation, we would have no problem defending our homeland. Short of missile strikes no army in the world has the capability to strike the mainland US. Our naval and air dominance ensures that.

I don't like the term "police the globe" because I don't think it's true. The US blatantly overlooks war crimes all the time, simply because the country or people at risk have 0 value to us. We've crossed a dangerous threshold where we think it's necessary to force peoples and countries to subdue to our will or face annihilation - instead of working with our fellow man. This is creating a cycle of hate that's perpetuating terrorism. The US then expands the military more as a result - and has been pillaging our civil rights..

Money is only the start of our problem. We need to refocus our efforts 100%.

It is a stretch. Regardless of how much the US spends on its 'Defense' budget, there is no way the US could take over 43% of the world without having the entire rest of the world band together to fight back. If you are talking about elimination with ICBM's and automated weapons, then yea the US could do a lot of damage, but with the tech we have now there is no way for a single country to control the world.

Spend more on teaching when what we already spend doesn't do much? Fabulous idea! Creating jobs how? People making boots for soldiers, bullets for soldiers, and circuit boards for anything with a computer in it creates jobs. I agree that the US needs to fix its infrastructure.

And I see many people near me who have jobs, who work every day, and who still do drugs. Not that I don't want Welfare overhauled, but hey, to say that a majority of people on welfare prefer it to actually getting a job is fictitious, in my opinion. Since we are only talking opinions and not facts, there we go.

I'm not going to go into the US foreign policy mistakes and successes here, but I wish that people would realize that the government pumps a lot of money into the private sector through defense spending, instead of just assuming that the money spent magically disappears. Money has to move around and to have a successful economy, and having a huge percentage of it sit in the hands of a few without being spent is not good.

[Grizzly Willy]

We waste money all the time on practically anything.
Look at Yucca mountain. Look at Solyndra. Look at the California Border Protection Stations. The list is quite literally endless.

I want to see this endless list, and I expect it to be literally endless.

[Astounded]

For those who didnt know

The US Military spends more every year providing just air conditioning for our solders in the Middle East than Congress gives to NASA.

NASA's budget is right around 7 billion dollars per year. WE"RE SPENDING MORE THAN 7 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR JUST TO KEEP OUR SOLDERS COOL WHILE LIVING IN TENTS! In 2007, the amount of money labeled 'wasted' or 'lost' in Iraq -- $11 billion -- could pay 220,000 teachers salaries. Remember that is just "lost, wasted" money that never saw a real purpose. In 2008, the Pentagon spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earned in a year.

NASA is planning missions to Mars and even an Asteroid. New commercial spacecraft are being developed and tested, and NASA is working on the Multi-Purpose Cew Vehicle (MPCV), the Ares, for operations beyond Low Earth Orbit. Until these new vehicles are deemed safe to carry humans, the United States will rely on Russia's Soyuz to send astronauts into space. The fact that NASA needs to borrow another country's vehicles because it receives such little funding that everything takes much longer then it should, is just ridiculous.

It boggles my mind that the US's defense budget is of World Conquest proportions, meanwhile the important things like medical research, space exploration and science, receive the bare minimum funding. The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.

As the economy fell apart, the banks have been bailed out, and America lost its jobs, but the defense budget continues to grow, its defense spending doubled in the same period that its economy shrunk from 32 to 23 percent of global output. For the past 13 years U.S. military spending has increased 114 percent, making it a country with 5% of the world's population -- but 50% of the world's total military expenditure.

The defense budget just for 2010 was $663.84 billion. Compared to NASA's budget of 7 billion. I think advancements in technologies, learning about the universe, and colonizing other places, is much more important then occupying country's that are no longer a threat and harassing others. If NASA received even half of that $663.84, for only 1 year, the technology and advancements that would result would be unbelievable.

This is simply unacceptable.

You know what is "simply unacceptable?" Your issue with our troops. How dare our country provide some sort of comfort for them while after they get back trudging through Afghanistan? What the hell is our country thinking.

[Very Tired]

You know what is "simply unacceptable?" Your issue with our troops. How dare our country provide some sort of comfort for them while after they get back trudging through Afghanistan? What the hell is our country thinking.

Your missing the point of his sentence entirely. He never says that the army shouldn't be getting some AC while they are across seas, hes drawing a comparison the budgets between an Important space research group and the budget of the cooling system used in tents for our soldiers. It helps set the scale on how little money NASA is getting and how much money is being used on something like air cooling.

OT: If you take a look at everything the government spends money on (should be a list somewhere), you'll find better examples of wasteful money spending.

[obdigore]

Your missing the point of his sentence entirely. He never says that the army shouldn't be getting some AC while they are across seas, hes drawing a comparison the budgets between an Important space research group and the budget of the cooling system used in tents for our soldiers. It helps set the scale on how little money NASA is getting and how much money is being used on something like air cooling.

OT: If you take a look at everything the government spends money on (should be a list somewhere), you'll find better examples of wasteful money spending.

I maintain that his government spends no money on any kind of Space Program, and so he should not be telling others what they should be doing. The numbers in the OP are wrong as has been pointed out numerous times already.

[Skroe]

So where is this eluding REAL stability you speak of in Iraq and Afghanistan?
They have been the big money sinks in the military budget.
Iraq is on the brink to civil war and in Afghanistan the US is having peacetalks with the talibans.

You seem to be a bit blind when you defend the gigantic part of the budget that goes to the military with the above argument.
Your main argument is that it brings stability worldwide, most of all to US allies.
Yet the two biggest money sinks been nothing but a huge failure and then I'm limiting myself to what you got for the buck and totally disregarding the human cost.

Because having hundreds of thousands of US troops keep the peace other peoples country is a terrible idea. That isn't what our military should be bogged down doing. We should be off shore, in the skies above and in space. Our military should be on the one hand about completely kicking the crap out of any other country or assembly of countries on the planet and on the other hand using special operations to kill certain enemy persons and nip problems in the bud.

That is why I so love our current defense strategy. It's perfect. Special Operations are about to have the leash completely taken off - the SOCOM commander won't even have to get anything more than Defense Secretary approval to do pretty much anything. And on the other hand, while we spend less money stabilizing muslim countries, the country is going to take position of some very advanced hardware through 2020: two virgina class submarines a year, two brand new Ford Class supercarriers, hundreds of stealthy F-35s, thousands of new stealthy new drones, and on towards the end of the decade, the M1A3 tank that will weight 20 tons less than the M1A2 and the first in a line of 200 new stealthy long range bomber aircraft. And on top of it all is an entirely new generation of massive, stealthy spy sattlites.

Why's all this important? Because its replacing old stuff at a greater than 1:1 ratio. Our 270 fleet Navy will be 330 ships by 2020, for example. This is exactly the kind of military spending we should be doing. It is such a lead, as before it will discourage symmetric competition and promote stability. Even China has no ambitions to build a 1 to 1 carrier force - they know that they won't be able to compete with a country that's been doing global naval operations for seventy years. So they try an asymetric solution, like those overlype hyped "Carrier Killer" ballistic missiles, which were mostly negated as a threat late last year (according to the Danger Room blog) with a software upgrade to the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System.

But I wouldn't call Iraq and Afghanistan a failure, especially in one specific way: around the world military officers reach mid and high level rank by peace time promotion, exercises and connections. The Generals of most countries in the world have never ordered a shot to be fired in anger in their life. Not so the United States. The word for that is experienced. Over the past decade 2.5 million US service members have actually fought and served in a difficult bloody war, and they are the tomorrows leadership much the same way that the most Generals of today, like Petreus, first learned to fight in Vietnam and the Gulf War.

[Jackmoves]

But I wouldn't call Iraq and Afghanistan a failure, especially in one specific way: around the world military officers reach mid and high level rank by peace time promotion, exercises and connections. The Generals of most countries in the world have never ordered a shot to be fired in anger in their life. Not so the United States. The word for that is experienced. Over the past decade 2.5 million US service members have actually fought and served in a difficult bloody war, and they are the tomorrows leadership much the same way that the most Generals of today, like Petreus, first learned to fight in Vietnam and the Gulf War.

You seem like an intelligent person(just an impression I get from reading some of your posts) but this is some real BS, I do get your logic, but you would have a hard time trying to get people to support this line of thought, I find it very hard to get my head around how you are thinking here, you don't seem to take the backsides into account at all, how about all the US troops who return home with different kinds of PTSDs for example? Is it worth it?

In essence removing Sadam wasn't a bad idea, but it's caused a lot of new issues that might come back and bite you in the butt, same with afghanistan really, the root of the problems there is the level of poverty among the people and it's hardly been adressed to any meaningful degree, I was watching a video report from the Swedish run PRT in Mazar-e-Sharif and people up there are still dirt poor and thats an area of the country that got a lot less problems then the southern provinces, opium is a massive problem still for example, I think if the US and ISAF forces just pack up their bags and leave as early as 2014 I'm affraid close to nothing at all will have really been accomplished in the long run, but the costs will have been quite substantional.

[Skroe]

You seem like an intelligent person(just an impression I get from reading some of your posts) but this is some real BS, I do get your logic, but you would have a hard time trying to get people to support this line of thought, I find it very hard to get my head around how you are thinking here, you don't seem to take the backsides into account at all, how about all the US troops who return home with different kinds of PTSDs for example? Is it worth it?

In essence removing Sadam wasn't a bad idea, but it's caused a lot of new issues that might come back and bite you in the butt, same with afghanistan really, the root of the problems there is the level of poverty among the people and it's hardly been adressed to any meaningful degree, I was watching a video report from the Swedish run PRT in Mazar-e-Sharif and people up there are still dirt poor and thats an area of the country that got a lot less problems then the southern provinces, opium is a massive problem still for example, I think if the US and ISAF forces just pack up their bags and leave as early as 2014 I'm affraid close to nothing at all will have really been accomplished in the long run, but the costs will have been quite substantional.

That's a... jaundieced... perspective. I got a lot of military friends, including my best friend. If there is one thing they hate, its being patronized and infantilized. They're warriors, not fine china rolled out as props for visting heads of state. They want to and deserve to be treated with that in mind. Yes absolutely the wellfare and health, particularly mental health of servicemembers should be monitored, valued and not stigmatized. But equally so they are professionals who volunteer to do a job, not victims. I actually did ROTC for 2 and a half years in college before dropping out of it (it was at a neighboring university and basically incompatible with the university I was attending). From my own experience, as limited and academic as it was, I'll tell you from day one they drilled warrior culture into cadets. Every aspect of what they said and made us do was that. So when I say things about the military, I think of them through THAT lens because THAT is how they view themselves as an institution. Do you realize how important official "histories" are to the armed forced? Incredibly. Immeasurably. Why? Because they are ultimately the catalog of lessons leanred that will inform future military leaders about decisions they will have to make. Yes, absolutely.

The Iraq War lead to I believe 70,000 allied casualties and about 4000 deaths? But it also saw two and a half million Americans learn the ways of war by waging it, rather than by simply training and simulating it. That too will be in the official military history. And their individual experiences will be written down and used as a resource in future wars. Because that is how institutions improve themselves and maintain lessons learned. And that will in turn enrich the warrior culture in the next round of recuits, and the cycle repeats itself. A good example of this is the emphasis on physical fitness at the present compared to the late 1990s. There is no comparison. Over a decade ago your average high school athlete would have been just fine. Today, its far more challenging and intense and standards are far higher. Why? Because those 2.5 million Americans came home and said "this worked". A decade ago the Army was wedded to 5.66mm rounds to the point of irrationality. The realities of stoppingpower now has shifted to favor 7.62mm. Another lesson learned... one among countless thousands.

So while you focus on just the downside, just keep in mind (and which is kind of my point) that this is stuff our military institutions know having been there, done it and fought those wars... and the competition which only wargames and simulates has no concept of. In a shooting conflict with any other country, it will be the little lessons like this, as a whole, that make the biggest difference... not how many tanks or carrier or whatever else they have.

As far as Afghanistan goes, yes though, we should leave in 2014. We've given them enough of our time and money as is. If they cant get their act together, we should just write them off. We have much bigger fish to fry now than getting Afghan tribes to play nice with each other. Frankly, the fencing in of China is a job for the US military, not setting up schools in Khandahar province after a decade of doing just that.

[Maneo]

It always amazes me how ill informed people are, and how the left has conditioned a significant populace to "Military is Bad Ok".

Yes the U.S. spends a great deal on its Military. No where near as much as the left would like you to believe. If you took Military spending to 0% this country would be no better off economically then we are now.

At this time before Obamas defense "new" defense cuts are implemented the U.S. spends 3.6 percent of the GDP on the Military.

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/s...red-against-g/

Now lets break down, for 2009 per Wiki.

Operations and maintenance $283.3 billion
Military Personnel $154.2 billion
Procurement $140.1 billion
Research, Development, Testing & Evaluation $79.1 billion
Military Construction $23.9 billion
Family Housing $3.1 billion

Do you people realize the the Department of Defense is the LARGEST employer of U.S. citizens in the world. Example recently I had worked for a refrigeration maintenance company, they have about 600 employees nationwide. The only contract they had was working with the grocery stores refrigeration, AC/Heating and maintenance on Military installations. Guess where that money that paid my check, my child care, my medical insurance came from? It came from the "Operations and Maintenance"

That isn't even getting into the number of contractors employed for Military functions 260,000 estimated in 2011 for the Army alone.

That also doesn't include Department of Defense employees that are paid from the military budget as well, from everything to cleaning the toilets at the VA hospital, to providing Intel to your Navy Seals who offed Bin Laden. That money is taken from a variety of the above.

Then of course you have the research and development, did you know that major medical, and technological advances are often attributed to this department .. and the researchers they pay.

Procurement now this is where the equipment comes from, from the parts to the F-22 Stealth fight to the MRE feeding our troops... Now think of all the manufacturing jobs that would be lost by more military cuts... Manufacturing jobs that are largely located within the U.S.

Now all these people the U.S. Military employs are paying taxes right back into the system they work for.

So personally my question is where is the remaining 96.4 percent going.

Now as far as why we spend the most on our Military vs other nations.. its simple cost of living and quality of life..

[DEATHETERNAL]

In 2007, the amount of money labeled 'wasted' or 'lost' in Iraq -- $11 billion -- could pay 220,000 teachers salaries. Remember that is just "lost, wasted" money that never saw a real purpose. In 2008, the Pentagon spent more money every five seconds in Iraq than the average American earned in a year.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/medi...ry?id=10126555

Our welfare system wastes far far more than our military does.

The defense budget just for 2010 was $663.84 billion. Compared to NASA's budget of 7 billion. I think advancements in technologies, learning about the universe, and colonizing other places, is much more important then occupying country's that are no longer a threat and harassing others. If NASA received even half of that $663.84, for only 1 year, the technology and advancements that would result would be unbelievable.

Learning about the universe has absolutely no benefit beyond feeling good about ourselves (aka no benefit at all) and colonizing other places is still many decades away (throwing more taxpayers money at it won't magically make it happen). If you want advancements in technology, cut the welfare state and taxes so buisness has more money to fund their research and development departments so we can get technological progress that actually matters, not just some better spaceship whose only productive application would be military technology. Funding NASA is going to result in major technological advancement in one area, the ease of the weaponization of space (which is something we need, but you would appear to be against from your post).

[Reeve]

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/s...red-against-g/

Now lets break down, for 2009 per Wiki.

Operations and maintenance $283.3 billion
Military Personnel $154.2 billion
Procurement $140.1 billion
Research, Development, Testing & Evaluation $79.1 billion
Military Construction $23.9 billion
Family Housing $3.1 billion

Here are the 2013 numbers: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...l-graphic.html

[Bakis]

Our welfare system wastes far far more than our military does.

Does it really come as a surprise to you that welfare does not bring tax income? I mean really?
How can you even compare the two.

Cos' after all you are not comparing the budget of the two, just the return of it.

[Jackmoves]

That's a... jaundieced... perspective. I got a lot of military friends, including my best friend. If there is one thing they hate, its being patronized and infantilized. They're warriors, not fine china rolled out as props for visting heads of state. They want to and deserve to be treated with that in mind. Yes absolutely the wellfare and health, particularly mental health of servicemembers should be monitored, valued and not stigmatized. But equally so they are professionals who volunteer to do a job, not victims. I actually did ROTC for 2 and a half years in college before dropping out of it (it was at a neighboring university and basically incompatible with the university I was attending). From my own experience, as limited and academic as it was, I'll tell you from day one they drilled warrior culture into cadets. Every aspect of what they said and made us do was that. So when I say things about the military, I think of them through THAT lens because THAT is how they view themselves as an institution. Do you realize how important official "histories" are to the armed forced? Incredibly. Immeasurably. Why? Because they are ultimately the catalog of lessons leanred that will inform future military leaders about decisions they will have to make. Yes, absolutely.

The Iraq War lead to I believe 70,000 allied casualties and about 4000 deaths? But it also saw two and a half million Americans learn the ways of war by waging it, rather than by simply training and simulating it. That too will be in the official military history. And their individual experiences will be written down and used as a resource in future wars. Because that is how institutions improve themselves and maintain lessons learned. And that will in turn enrich the warrior culture in the next round of recuits, and the cycle repeats itself. A good example of this is the emphasis on physical fitness at the present compared to the late 1990s. There is no comparison. Over a decade ago your average high school athlete would have been just fine. Today, its far more challenging and intense and standards are far higher. Why? Because those 2.5 million Americans came home and said "this worked". A decade ago the Army was wedded to 5.66mm rounds to the point of irrationality. The realities of stoppingpower now has shifted to favor 7.62mm. Another lesson learned... one among countless thousands.

So while you focus on just the downside, just keep in mind (and which is kind of my point) that this is stuff our military institutions know having been there, done it and fought those wars... and the competition which only wargames and simulates has no concept of. In a shooting conflict with any other country, it will be the little lessons like this, as a whole, that make the biggest difference... not how many tanks or carrier or whatever else they have.

As far as Afghanistan goes, yes though, we should leave in 2014. We've given them enough of our time and money as is. If they cant get their act together, we should just write them off. We have much bigger fish to fry now than getting Afghan tribes to play nice with each other. Frankly, the fencing in of China is a job for the US military, not setting up schools in Khandahar province after a decade of doing just that.

Not meant to come off as patronising towards the military, I have the outmost respect for what most of them are trying to do, I don't necessary think the warrior mentality is something to hail and praise to high heaven though, I think the US is quite different from my country there, maybe it is because you do have more "battle hardened" soldiers... but the military is "special" here to, I did military service as a FK900, Army Recon/light mechanized infantry which is quite "macho" and very tough(like ranger training really, 15 months of training, with well over 100 days in "the field", SERE etc etc only difference between us and our rangers is that we don't get a beret when we make it to the end)... but from what I can tell it's still a different mentality in comparison to that of the US armed forces.

Anyways, my point with bringing up the health of the veterans and solderis was simply to questioning if the "price" is worth to pay if you know what I mean? Many manage fine but there are also a lot of people who suffers from different PTSDs, not to mention the injured and dead.

Add the political repercussions and all the civilian casulties and the price for those lessons starts to add up, so I do think the US is paying a dear price in exchange for what they gain, and the countries that these lessons are learned in are nowhere close to being stable or sound either, meaning the local population suffers to.

About Afghanistan, whats the point in going there if nothing really is accomplished(apart from killing some talibans and OBL)? If we don't change their country substantially the world just risks getting another Osama Bin Laden in a few years again, poverty ridden countries like Afghanistan is a dream come true for terror organisations such as Al qaida, they got money to spend and "looks after their people", providing them with finances to live just a little bit better, loads of the taliban/Al qaida supporters and family members to taliban warriors that has fled over into Pakistan for example have recieved monetary support from them, keeping them loyal to their "cause" or whatever one would want to call it.

I just feel it's a total waste of time and effort(not to mention money!) if we leave that place without getting some long lasting changes going, rather stay longer and really change the place then having to go back in 20 years to do the same thing all over again, that seem to be a mistake the US have not learned from tbh.

[Marema]

This is funny. Let's go build a moon base and not worry about keeping the country safe! Let's go explore the universe! Woo! Somebody has been watching Star Trek waaaay too much.

Armchair politicians are about as usefull as armchair quarterbacks.

[Deleted]

Now all these people the U.S. Military employs are paying taxes right back into the system they work for.

So personally my question is where is the remaining 96.4 percent going.

Now as far as why we spend the most on our Military vs other nations.. its simple cost of living and quality of life..

Sure, but by that logic the government should just draft every single unemployed person into the army. It'll create even more jobs!
Or hire more teachers, or NASA scientists, or what have you. Any argument you use against cutting army spending also applies to most other government spending.
Medicare and medicaid, that money is going towards US hospitals and drug companies right?

Oh, and http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...l-graphic.html shows government military spending of $620 billion out of a total of $3.7 trillion, so I suspect you're excluding a lot of numbers somewhere.