Republicans Open the New Session of Congress - Page 5

On January 06 2011 14:38 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:


My family, and many families of my friends in the area work in the defense sector. Defense research is getting massive cutbacks already. It is much harder to cut back the size of a standing army overnight, and it is also extremely dangerous to cut back on task forces and operational military.

However, the cutting of defense research has the most profound and lasting effects on our ability to stay in power as the #1 military. Remember, china has way more people, and a bigger standing army.

If anything, more money needs to be going into DoD research. It creates jobs and it helps secure our position as the globally dominant military. Also, it's far less money than people think. We could spend 10x what we do on military research and development and it'd be a fairly small overall budget increase.

On January 06 2011 15:04 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
SNIP
The real point is that we spend a good bit to keep ourselves safe, but we clearly can spend a lot more. People should look at history and see that we're well within norms to spend money on national safety at these levels currently.

On January 06 2011 14:52 Krikkitone wrote:


BAD, EVIL ARGUMENT...
All government spending creates "jobs"....
even a person on unemployment has the "job" of showing up and saying that they were looking for work.

Arguably defense spending pays people for doing something slightly useful.

The issue is how useful it is.

Especially when military superiority is threatening out economic superiority (excess borrowing or taxes required to pay for it)

On January 06 2011 15:11 thehitman wrote:
When the new congress cuts military spending it will be a good sign. Otherwise all these new legislation's are crap.

If the USA are to survive and all non politically engaged economists say so, they must stop the wars.

If the USA pulled out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea and Columbia it would cut the expenditure by about 15%

If USA closed all their military bases and returned all soldiers home it would cut 25% of the expenditure.

On January 06 2011 15:19 Krikkitone wrote:


And if the US cut entitlement spending by 5-15% it would have the same effect on the budget.


However, I do think the idea of abandoning a conventional military is a good idea
Replace with

-Nukes to fight Nation states

-"Police Infantry" for fighting non-nation state groups in weak nation states (with solid air/drone support)... However this would still be very expensive... as it would require multiple well trained+equipped individuals.

On January 06 2011 15:19 Krikkitone wrote:


And if the US cut entitlement spending by 5-15% it would have the same effect on the budget.


However, I do think the idea of abandoning a conventional military is a good idea
Replace with

-Nukes to fight Nation states

-"Police Infantry" for fighting non-nation state groups in weak nation states (with solid air/drone support)... However this would still be very expensive... as it would require multiple well trained+equipped individuals.

On January 06 2011 13:59 Lefnui wrote:

It is absolutely ridiculous with not a hint of logic behind it. How are our assets being threatened? How is our military spending protecting our assets?

Sorry but "we got more stuff so we need more stuff to protect our stuff" isn't an acceptable argument.

On January 06 2011 15:31 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:


A conventional military is required for many reasons:

Occupation and assistance: We cannot give aid to our allies or give aid in foreign disasters without a conventional military. We also cannot actually man our holdings in other parts of the world. If we want to push back China out of South Korea, we cannot do that with nukes.

On January 06 2011 15:31 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:

You cannot rely on nukes as your only deterrent. No nation wants to commit to using them. If we have no conventional army, we have no way to deter enemeis from taking small bites at us repeatedly. We cannot respond to such aggression with nuclear force, so we'd be forced to take a loss for no reason. In addition, nukes are an awfully heavy solution to any war, and even a war hawk is going to be cautious about using one ever.

On January 06 2011 15:31 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:

It is really hard to take out a specific terrorist camp without leveling a city with a nuke. You need conventional forces to take out key targets and perform small scale assaults. In the end, if you wanted to only rely on nukes you'd just be blanketing a country with them to take out every military target you need to take out. That's no way to win a war (unless it's against zerg).

Hypothetical war with North Korea: nuke them. What an awful foreign policy

On January 06 2011 15:52 Krikkitone wrote:

I disagree... we could definitely push China out of south Korea with Nukes... or at least the threat of nukes. provided we gave sufficient warning to China before they moved into South Korea.

A full conventional military action between nuclear powers is likely to become a nuclear war anyways.

A nonnuclear power would definitely be deterred.


"Small bites" that consist of conventional enemy forces could definitely be countered by nukes



If the enemy is attacking in a non conventional way, ie guerilla forces/terrorists.... then conventional forces are not what you want, you want those "Police Infantry"... people that know which 'civilian' to shoot, and the way to have them shot.


Basically any Country using conventional military forces can be safely handled with nukes
Any Country using nukes can Only be safely handled with nukes

Organizations (including countries) using non conventional warfare such as terrorism/guerilla warfare should be handled differently... and a conventional military isn't what is needed in that case. What you need is a militarized version of a police force.

On January 06 2011 15:58 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:


Then what was Vietnam? Why didn't we just use nukes? How do you fight something like that without conventional troops?

Also the US does not have a policy of using nukes against non nuclear threats just because we can. I don't think that's about to change.

On January 06 2011 16:19 EchOne wrote:
I don't know how this became a discussion of the merits of a military armed only with nuclear payloads, but try to consider that military as an extension of foreign policy and you may see how utterly inflexible it is in its applications and benefits. It is essentially only going to maintain deterrence. When applied to live targets it will create environmental externalities, unprecedented ill will, and a new precedent of applied nuclear arms as a policy tool, multiplying the consequences in the future. Imagine a situation where an ailing hegemon is now seen as an imminent threat by all other states, some of which are armed with instant genocide weapons that the hegemon itself has declared open season in using.

On January 06 2011 16:27 Scruffy wrote:
To the guy who said the Democrat "era" was only two years, they were in control of Congress since 2006.

I think that the free market can allocate money better than the government, plain and simple.

If government spending creates jobs, then what happened with the stimulus? I know you will argue "pulled us back from the brink blah blah blah", but honestly, the bill was just a trillion dollar pork bill. I still don't think they have spent most of it. Wonder why that is, huh.

Idk, the liberal arguments for most things don't compute with my brain for some reason. It seems that they all want "class warfare" and "poor vs. rich" mentalities about everything. I honestly don't want "rich" people to be taxed more. I work for a small business run by two older guys (construction company), and you think taxing them more will help them hire more and expand??

Helping the poor is another issue for me. Why should the government do it? Do you really think African-American's poverty demographics have shifted in the past 50 years? They have probably gotten worse. Its almost like the Dems want to tell them (although more covertly, obviously) "Hey, guess what guys, vote us in, and we will pay you to not work!" Pretty sweet deal if you can get it I guess.

So basically, what I'm saying is....make government smaller. The people will make things right (if we can/deserve to), not the government. I'm just praying everyone with an "R" by their name doesn't blow it this time. Seems like we have a younger/more libertarian leaning group than in year's past.
I'm counting on people like Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Allen West, etc. to do what they promised. I will fight them tooth and nail if they don't.

On January 06 2011 16:24 NATO wrote:
OMG guys, I can't bear the though of having a balanced budget, and a monetary system that doesn't get to print money for their friends with no accountability. The world will be in chaos!