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On July 09 2013 03:19 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 03:12 sc2superfan101 wrote:On July 09 2013 02:41 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 02:19 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 01:38 Shiori wrote:
I only ask cause I'm not American lol. I thought the military budget was frighteningly high, but I guess if people want to increase it it must have some perceived lack or something? >< It's high, but in line with historical norms. Polls like this don't really mean anything other than what people's gut instinct and opinion are on a topic. For any individual budget item (military included) there's always a cohort of people that make money from it so they'll support it just out of self interest. All of the info I've seen on U.S. military spending is pretty outrageous. Especially with the last 2 wars we've fought and the money we've pissed away from 9/11. The dumb part isn't so much the numbers, it's the percentage of government spending it's becoming. You'd think if we HAD to have government spending we'd want to reduce the amount we spend on intentional violence and increase the amount we spent on at least trying to get healthcare to people. ![[image loading]](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=Defense&units=p&size=m&year=1970_2018&sname=US&bar=1&stack=1&col=c&legend=&source=a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_i_a_i_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_e_g_g_g_g_g_g_g&spending0=9.12_8.24_7.65_6.72_6.56_6.73_6.27_5.99_5.71_5.61_6.02_6.19_6.81_6.98_6.84_7.00_7.04_6.76_6.47_6.26_5.90_5.35_5.50_5.16_4.75_4.40_4.04_3.90_3.68_3.56_3.61_3.56_3.97_4.34_4.59_4.76_4.65_4.66_5.11_5.69_5.85_5.83_5.42_5.29_4.89_4.60_4.29_4.07_3.89) ![[image loading]](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=Defense&units=f&size=m&year=1970_2018&sname=US&bar=1&stack=1&col=c&legend=&source=a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_i_a_i_a_a_a_a_a_a_a_e_g_g_g_g_g_g_g&spending0=48.40_44.15_41.04_37.78_36.54_33.16_30.79_29.72_28.54_28.51_28.41_28.54_29.71_30.50_31.56_31.19_31.69_31.91_31.02_30.00_27.30_24.20_25.24_24.42_23.02_21.54_20.28_20.31_19.56_19.59_20.06_19.68_20.99_22.41_23.72_24.32_23.43_23.95_24.50_22.60_24.53_24.41_24.05_23.28_22.03_21.10_19.88_19.16_18.36) from http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/It's high and I'd like it lower, but I can see how some people worry that it's getting low. Edit: In case it's too hard to read: first graph is military spending as % of GDP, second is % of federal budget. HAHAHA I like those graphs cause it meant Romney's stupid ass idea to peg defense spending to 4% of GDP would have actually been a spending cut even though he was selling it as an increase.
I don't know if you noticed, but the graph shows projections dipping below 4% Yeah, projections in the future. Currently it would be a cut. When Romney was running it would have been a pretty severe cut. I did notice thanks, but I can also read the X-axis of a graph.
And you did notice that when Romney was running he was suggesting a "floor" of 4%? That he would go no lower than 4%, not necessarily that he would go no higher?
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About sequestration, a lot of people (including myself) were wrong about the effects to government jobs and services. However, that's because the blunt hammer of cuts were finely shaped at the final hour to minimize their visible impact. There's no guarantee that will happen again with the next round of cuts coming up later this year. There are signs departments are up against a wall now.
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Blunt hammer of cuts. Heh 
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The biggest part of military spending is paying soldiers. It costs a lot of money to pay all those salaries, and to keep the ones on active duty housed and geared up properly. However with the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, assuming the US doesn't get into any other wars, it should be possible to continue to reduce military expenditures fairly easily.
The US still maintains thousands of troops in South Korea, Japan, Germany, and several other countries. Many people argue that these troops should be brought home. However, any time there is any humanitarian disaster that happens anywhere as a result of armed conflict, there is always demand for the US to intervene militarily. No other country really has the military capacity to get involved on its own. Still, many people argue that these warzones are not the US's problem and that they should stay out.
The reality is that most of these situations are complicated and there are plausible arguments on both sides.
The other funny thing is that foreign policy seems to be one of the few areas where Democrats and Republicans don't really have much difference between their platforms these days.
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On July 09 2013 03:33 ziggurat wrote:
The biggest part of military spending is paying soldiers. It costs a lot of money to pay all those salaries, and to keep the ones on active duty housed and geared up properly. However with the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq, assuming the US doesn't get into any other wars, it should be possible to continue to reduce military expenditures fairly easily.
The US still maintains thousands of troops in South Korea, Japan, Germany, and several other countries. Many people argue that these troops should be brought home. However, any time there is any humanitarian disaster that happens anywhere as a result of armed conflict, there is always demand for the US to intervene militarily. No other country really has the military capacity to get involved on its own. Still, many people argue that these warzones are not the US's problem and that they should stay out.
The reality is that most of these situations are complicated and there are plausible arguments on both sides.
The other funny thing is that foreign policy seems to be one of the few areas where Democrats and Republicans don't really have much difference between their platforms these days.
It's easy to justify military spending when it is characterized as soldier pay. When it becomes clear that millions upon millions are spent on overly-expensive and less reliable contractors as opposed to enlisted/commissioned soldiers, the story changes rather significantly.
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On July 09 2013 02:47 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 02:43 Zaros wrote:On July 09 2013 02:41 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 02:19 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 01:38 Shiori wrote:
I only ask cause I'm not American lol. I thought the military budget was frighteningly high, but I guess if people want to increase it it must have some perceived lack or something? >< It's high, but in line with historical norms. Polls like this don't really mean anything other than what people's gut instinct and opinion are on a topic. For any individual budget item (military included) there's always a cohort of people that make money from it so they'll support it just out of self interest. All of the info I've seen on U.S. military spending is pretty outrageous. Especially with the last 2 wars we've fought and the money we've pissed away from 9/11. The dumb part isn't so much the numbers, it's the percentage of government spending it's becoming. You'd think if we HAD to have government spending we'd want to reduce the amount we spend on intentional violence and increase the amount we spent on at least trying to get healthcare to people. from http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/It's high and I'd like it lower, but I can see how some people worry that it's getting low. Edit: In case it's too hard to read: first graph is military spending as % of GDP, second is % of federal budget. HAHAHA I like those graphs cause it meant Romney's stupid ass idea to peg defense spending to 4% of GDP would have actually been a spending cut even though he was selling it as an increase. Just to be bitchy, starting at 1970 is SO cheating. Obviously it's going to make every other year look like small potatoes. And when you compare our defense spending to other countries, it's off the effing charts. And how could people worry that it's getting low? It's been going up for about a decade? Unless they think we should be sitting at Cold War levels of spending in which case I have little problem calling them xenophobic nutjobs. Percentage of GDP wise it isn't way off the charts (but pretty high) but in nominal terms its way ahead of everyone. If X billion dollars stops terrorists for the majority of the world, why does the U.S. need X^10 to stop those same terrorists?
1) the military isn't much about terrorists I would say that is a small proportion of it.
2) More Land More People Higher Profile means you may need to spend more money.
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On July 09 2013 03:44 Zaros wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 02:47 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:43 Zaros wrote:On July 09 2013 02:41 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 02:19 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 01:38 Shiori wrote:
I only ask cause I'm not American lol. I thought the military budget was frighteningly high, but I guess if people want to increase it it must have some perceived lack or something? >< It's high, but in line with historical norms. Polls like this don't really mean anything other than what people's gut instinct and opinion are on a topic. For any individual budget item (military included) there's always a cohort of people that make money from it so they'll support it just out of self interest. All of the info I've seen on U.S. military spending is pretty outrageous. Especially with the last 2 wars we've fought and the money we've pissed away from 9/11. The dumb part isn't so much the numbers, it's the percentage of government spending it's becoming. You'd think if we HAD to have government spending we'd want to reduce the amount we spend on intentional violence and increase the amount we spent on at least trying to get healthcare to people. from http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/It's high and I'd like it lower, but I can see how some people worry that it's getting low. Edit: In case it's too hard to read: first graph is military spending as % of GDP, second is % of federal budget. HAHAHA I like those graphs cause it meant Romney's stupid ass idea to peg defense spending to 4% of GDP would have actually been a spending cut even though he was selling it as an increase. Just to be bitchy, starting at 1970 is SO cheating. Obviously it's going to make every other year look like small potatoes. And when you compare our defense spending to other countries, it's off the effing charts. And how could people worry that it's getting low? It's been going up for about a decade? Unless they think we should be sitting at Cold War levels of spending in which case I have little problem calling them xenophobic nutjobs. Percentage of GDP wise it isn't way off the charts (but pretty high) but in nominal terms its way ahead of everyone. If X billion dollars stops terrorists for the majority of the world, why does the U.S. need X^10 to stop those same terrorists? 1) the military isn't much about terrorists I would say that is a small proportion of it. 2) More Land More People Higher Profile means you may need to spend more money.
I just don't buy that our land and "popularity" are so great that we have to spend hundreds of times what other countries spend.
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On July 09 2013 03:24 aksfjh wrote:
About sequestration, a lot of people (including myself) were wrong about the effects to government jobs and services. However, that's because the blunt hammer of cuts were finely shaped at the final hour to minimize their visible impact. There's no guarantee that will happen again with the next round of cuts coming up later this year. There are signs departments are up against a wall now.
They can always try to readjust their budgets for next fiscal year (October 1). If not, and the service is important, a lot of state and local budgets have turned the corner and they can pick up the slack.
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On July 09 2013 02:47 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 02:43 Zaros wrote:On July 09 2013 02:41 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:31 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 02:19 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 02:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 01:38 Shiori wrote:
I only ask cause I'm not American lol. I thought the military budget was frighteningly high, but I guess if people want to increase it it must have some perceived lack or something? >< It's high, but in line with historical norms. Polls like this don't really mean anything other than what people's gut instinct and opinion are on a topic. For any individual budget item (military included) there's always a cohort of people that make money from it so they'll support it just out of self interest. All of the info I've seen on U.S. military spending is pretty outrageous. Especially with the last 2 wars we've fought and the money we've pissed away from 9/11. The dumb part isn't so much the numbers, it's the percentage of government spending it's becoming. You'd think if we HAD to have government spending we'd want to reduce the amount we spend on intentional violence and increase the amount we spent on at least trying to get healthcare to people. from http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/It's high and I'd like it lower, but I can see how some people worry that it's getting low. Edit: In case it's too hard to read: first graph is military spending as % of GDP, second is % of federal budget. HAHAHA I like those graphs cause it meant Romney's stupid ass idea to peg defense spending to 4% of GDP would have actually been a spending cut even though he was selling it as an increase. Just to be bitchy, starting at 1970 is SO cheating. Obviously it's going to make every other year look like small potatoes. And when you compare our defense spending to other countries, it's off the effing charts. And how could people worry that it's getting low? It's been going up for about a decade? Unless they think we should be sitting at Cold War levels of spending in which case I have little problem calling them xenophobic nutjobs. Percentage of GDP wise it isn't way off the charts (but pretty high) but in nominal terms its way ahead of everyone. If X billion dollars stops terrorists for the majority of the world, why does the U.S. need X^10 to stop those same terrorists?
Because that ^10 is the extra money that's needed to defend us from the people that despise us for being complete dicks to the rest of the world.
But really, our military spending is absolutely inexcusable. There is no reason for us to spend so much on the military that we could effectively engage in multiple wars on opposite sides of the globe. The U.S. has always had this absurd idea that it needs to be able to crush the entire world under its foot or else it isn't properly defended. It's ridiculous, paranoid, and embarrassing. Many other countries out there have it better than we do and they spend a tiny fraction of what we do on defense.
"But but but but we need to defend ourselves from all the people that hate us!"
Reality check: we wouldn't be so hated if our government wasn't full of a bunch of fucking assholes and we didn't run around the IR scene like a fat bully in 5th grade on the playground.
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Correct me if my history is wrong, but...has the US ever had a serious threat of invasion?
I know the "defend our nation" and "defend our freedom" rhetoric is used by every single country, but aside from your initial war of independence, when has anyone even attempted to take over US soil?
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On July 09 2013 04:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Correct me if my history is wrong, but...has the US ever had a serious threat of invasion?
I know the "defend our nation" and "defend our freedom" rhetoric is used by every single country, but aside from your initial war of independence, when has anyone even attempted to take over US soil?
Pearl Harbor and the War of 1812 come to mind immediately. Both are different enough from contemporary times to render their comparisons fairly toothless though.
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On July 09 2013 05:06 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 04:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Correct me if my history is wrong, but...has the US ever had a serious threat of invasion?
I know the "defend our nation" and "defend our freedom" rhetoric is used by every single country, but aside from your initial war of independence, when has anyone even attempted to take over US soil? Pearl Harbor and the War of 1812 come to mind immediately. Both are different enough from contemporary times to render their comparisons fairly toothless though.
Pearl Harbor was an invasion? I thought it was just an attack. The Japanese didn't try to occupy any of our territory did they?
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On July 09 2013 05:09 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 05:06 farvacola wrote:On July 09 2013 04:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Correct me if my history is wrong, but...has the US ever had a serious threat of invasion?
I know the "defend our nation" and "defend our freedom" rhetoric is used by every single country, but aside from your initial war of independence, when has anyone even attempted to take over US soil? Pearl Harbor and the War of 1812 come to mind immediately. Both are different enough from contemporary times to render their comparisons fairly toothless though. Pearl Harbor was an invasion? I thought it was just an attack. The Japanese didn't try to occupy any of our territory did they?
The threat of invasion and the actual possibility of it are rather different things.
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The usa military is not there for the benefit of the usa alone, it is there to protect the interests of the whole "western" world.
Somehow americans dont mind paying this cost for the rest of their alies, and i dont think anny of the alies realy minds it either.
Isnt the usa obligied by some old threaty to also defend japan btw? (because japan was not allowed to have a big military after the war) i remember reading something about that once.
"The threat of invasion and the actual possibility of it are rather different things."
Well if the actually possibility is not there, then it will be difficult to say that there is a real threat.
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On July 09 2013 05:09 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 05:06 farvacola wrote:On July 09 2013 04:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Correct me if my history is wrong, but...has the US ever had a serious threat of invasion?
I know the "defend our nation" and "defend our freedom" rhetoric is used by every single country, but aside from your initial war of independence, when has anyone even attempted to take over US soil? Pearl Harbor and the War of 1812 come to mind immediately. Both are different enough from contemporary times to render their comparisons fairly toothless though. Pearl Harbor was an invasion? I thought it was just an attack. The Japanese didn't try to occupy any of our territory did they?
They occupied some islands in Alaska and the Pacific (Guam, Wake Island).
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On July 09 2013 04:33 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 03:24 aksfjh wrote:
About sequestration, a lot of people (including myself) were wrong about the effects to government jobs and services. However, that's because the blunt hammer of cuts were finely shaped at the final hour to minimize their visible impact. There's no guarantee that will happen again with the next round of cuts coming up later this year. There are signs departments are up against a wall now. They can always try to readjust their budgets for next fiscal year (October 1). If not, and the service is important, a lot of state and local budgets have turned the corner and they can pick up the slack.
For the first part, that's what I'm talking about. They've done tremendous acrobatics to make the cuts as efficient as possible, but it's going to be much harder to squeeze that last drop out of the budget before having to dig into actual payroll and services.
I doubt the states will be much help, especially if Obamacare is of any indication.
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On July 09 2013 05:23 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 04:33 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 03:24 aksfjh wrote:
About sequestration, a lot of people (including myself) were wrong about the effects to government jobs and services. However, that's because the blunt hammer of cuts were finely shaped at the final hour to minimize their visible impact. There's no guarantee that will happen again with the next round of cuts coming up later this year. There are signs departments are up against a wall now. They can always try to readjust their budgets for next fiscal year (October 1). If not, and the service is important, a lot of state and local budgets have turned the corner and they can pick up the slack. For the first part, that's what I'm talking about. They've done tremendous acrobatics to make the cuts as efficient as possible, but it's going to be much harder to squeeze that last drop out of the budget before having to dig into actual payroll and services. I doubt the states will be much help, especially if Obamacare is of any indication.
It'll affect different departments differently. Some will have to make real cuts, others will handle it. So far congress has made a lot accommodations to departments that can't handle it. We may see more of that. There are opportunities for annual budget increases too.
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On July 09 2013 05:17 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 05:09 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 05:06 farvacola wrote:On July 09 2013 04:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Correct me if my history is wrong, but...has the US ever had a serious threat of invasion?
I know the "defend our nation" and "defend our freedom" rhetoric is used by every single country, but aside from your initial war of independence, when has anyone even attempted to take over US soil? Pearl Harbor and the War of 1812 come to mind immediately. Both are different enough from contemporary times to render their comparisons fairly toothless though. Pearl Harbor was an invasion? I thought it was just an attack. The Japanese didn't try to occupy any of our territory did they? They occupied some islands in Alaska and the Pacific (Guam, Wake Island).
TIL. Coolio. So there actually was an invasion of sorts which can be used to justify the current "threat of invasion." I mean, the logic is still incredibly shaky but it's more than I thought existed.
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On July 09 2013 05:56 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 05:17 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 05:09 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 05:06 farvacola wrote:On July 09 2013 04:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Correct me if my history is wrong, but...has the US ever had a serious threat of invasion?
I know the "defend our nation" and "defend our freedom" rhetoric is used by every single country, but aside from your initial war of independence, when has anyone even attempted to take over US soil? Pearl Harbor and the War of 1812 come to mind immediately. Both are different enough from contemporary times to render their comparisons fairly toothless though. Pearl Harbor was an invasion? I thought it was just an attack. The Japanese didn't try to occupy any of our territory did they? They occupied some islands in Alaska and the Pacific (Guam, Wake Island). TIL. Coolio. So there actually was an invasion of sorts which can be used to justify the current "threat of invasion." I mean, the logic is still incredibly shaky but it's more than I thought existed.
Eh. It's about as serious as Britain saying it's being invaded because Argentina is trying to take back the Falkland Islands, in the case of Guam and Wake island.
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On July 09 2013 05:56 Klondikebar wrote:Show nested quote +On July 09 2013 05:17 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On July 09 2013 05:09 Klondikebar wrote:On July 09 2013 05:06 farvacola wrote:On July 09 2013 04:59 WolfintheSheep wrote:
Correct me if my history is wrong, but...has the US ever had a serious threat of invasion?
I know the "defend our nation" and "defend our freedom" rhetoric is used by every single country, but aside from your initial war of independence, when has anyone even attempted to take over US soil? Pearl Harbor and the War of 1812 come to mind immediately. Both are different enough from contemporary times to render their comparisons fairly toothless though. Pearl Harbor was an invasion? I thought it was just an attack. The Japanese didn't try to occupy any of our territory did they? They occupied some islands in Alaska and the Pacific (Guam, Wake Island). TIL. Coolio. So there actually was an invasion of sorts which can be used to justify the current "threat of invasion." I mean, the logic is still incredibly shaky but it's more than I thought existed.
Modern military threats to the US are things like North Korea invading South Korea, or China aggressively annexing nearby islands, or Israel getting invaded by neighbors, or nuclear proliferation. The US actually being invaded is a far off concern.
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EPT
