If Brinksmanship Does Spur a Debate on Spending, What Will?
Posted by CircuitGuy 11 years, 2 months ago to Government
I've only read one or two articles, but what amazes me most is we *still* don't have a discussion (that I've heard) about drastically scaling back spending.
My guess is apart from PPACA histrionics, they're doing the usual "we need to cut spending, but without cutting military, Social Security, or Medicare." That makes no sense since those things are most of the budget.
The fed gov't provides more than half the retirement income for more than half of the retired people. The US military spends almost as much as all the other countries combined b/c we're supposedly the only ones holding it together. If we don't question these assumptions now, when will we ever? Do we just wait until rates rise and servicing the debt is half the budget? I guess that's what it will take, but as an engineer I find that a very inefficient way of doing things.
My guess is apart from PPACA histrionics, they're doing the usual "we need to cut spending, but without cutting military, Social Security, or Medicare." That makes no sense since those things are most of the budget.
The fed gov't provides more than half the retirement income for more than half of the retired people. The US military spends almost as much as all the other countries combined b/c we're supposedly the only ones holding it together. If we don't question these assumptions now, when will we ever? Do we just wait until rates rise and servicing the debt is half the budget? I guess that's what it will take, but as an engineer I find that a very inefficient way of doing things.
But the greatest revenue enhancement would come from decimating the federal bureaucracy. Removing the host of redundant and unConstitutional executive departments.
Taken from here (which you won't be able to get to at the moment, because of govt shutdown):
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/c...
Here's ten big places we're spending our money (I think the numbers are in billions, but can't load the site to verify):
117.5 Social Security - on budget
127.1 Retirement and Disability - federal employees
134.8 Unemployment Compensation
151.9 National Defense - Procurement
157.0 National Defense - military personnel
176.6 "other" income security
311.9 National Defense - operations and maintenance
347.0 Health care services
430.4 Interest paid out on Treasury Bills
494.3 Medicare
My two cents: eliminate Medicare D.
On the military side of things, I'll suggest a cut. Just how many aircraft carriers do we need? Check this out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ai...
You'll notice we've got 10, our UK ally has 2, and except for Italy, everyone else has zero or one. Justification please? Why can't we make this four? One active for Atlantic and Pacific far deployment, and one in near deployment for training and reserve/backup.
The argument against this, as I understand it, is the US military is providing the defense for the entire world and if we didn't do it no one would do it. I don't see that, but I'm open to new information.
Fine, then I want 3 Archangel Michael class Orions in exchange, or 18 THORs. I'd prefer the THORs, but the Orions would be more useful.
http://www.up-ship.com/apr/michael.htm
I said it's 1939. The battleship still dominates naval warfare.
There are two truths of military history:
Generals are always ready to fight the last war.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
The Confederate War was so bloody because they were using 50 year old tactics on a more modern battlefield with more accurate weapons.
the Chinese have come up with an aircraft carrier destroying missile. Now how many should we have?
Due to our increased respect and affection around the world, our "allies" either force us to leave our airbases (which we hopefully destroy on the way out) in their nations, or simply refuse us overflight. Iran is about to launch an all-out nuclear attack on Israel, involving aircraft delivery as well as missile, and is seen building an invasion force in its southern regions.
Our four aircraft carriers are off dealing with made-up issues, instigated by Iran and/or their allies in order to draw our 4 aircraft carriers out of the region.
Now what do you do?
Mothballing ships costs money, too.
Space aliens invade destroying our land-based military installations, but for some reason fail to attack our navy (logistics and cultural issues, most likely). How many carriers do we need then?
Maybe we should be building 50 more aircraft carriers, since we may well have to take on a China AND Russia AND the moslem world, all equipped with the capability of destroying aircraft carriers.