President Obama Re-Elected - Page 260

On August 09 2012 11:54 biology]major wrote:
I see what you are saying but you have nothing to fear U.S. could stop defense spending to 0 and still be ahead of the world for many years. Outside of the completely pacifist/neutral countries, The U.S. is the safest country to be in if a war were to ever break out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

just a little perspective for how far ahead we are, I think at some point we have to stop calling it "defense" spending.

Edit: I don't want defense to go to 0 lol that was just a hypothetical :p

wow the U.S. has spent 44% of the world military expenditure... 1 country...

On August 09 2012 14:10 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
And going all over the world and implementing, sometimes forcefully, to control certain interests never won any friends and in the long run, allies.

On August 09 2012 14:17 Elegy wrote:


US defense spending is, when considered to be a percentage of GDP, hardly anything extraordinary.

Discussing the size of the US military in absolute figures is a silly adventure in terribly misleading statistics at best.

On August 09 2012 13:55 BlueBird. wrote:
So we should extremely overpay on all of the military and defense, not just the research/science part of it, so we can keep the research/science part cause the rest of our countries policies towards science suck?

I find it hard to believe the majority of that money is going to r&d, maybe half of it is, and if it is, I find it hard to believe it's anywhere near efficiently spent. We could do much much better in the sciences with that money, and probably improve social programs as well as reduce the nations debt, all in one fell swoop if we cut the funding for the military in half. Oh and we would probably still be more armed and dangerous then every other nation.

On August 09 2012 14:18 Lightwip wrote:

In a way, it does. We do have Israel, after all .
Of course, we did burn more bridges than we created. Still, there is value in enforcing our interests, even if only with an implicit threat of force by having the means to use it. Not that peace isn't better, but there's a fair number of factions in the world incapable of seeing reason that we need to be able to oppose with military.



http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS
We're about 8th or so in that regard. The biggest spenders are the MidEast and Estonia.
More than average, but I suppose not exorbitant.

On August 09 2012 15:22 Silidons wrote:

"We" have Israel? Or does Israel have us? I'd like to think that Israel has us - we give them so much money it's unbelievable.

There is a curious omission in Mitt Romney’s speech to the VFW today.

He warns against the dire consequences of the massive Pentagon budget cutbacks scheduled to take effect at the end of the year. And that’s an absolutely legitimate issue, prompting concern in both parties.

But here’s the rub that Romney neglects, at least based on excerpts released by the campaign: The Republicans agreed to these cuts. The GOP-controlled House went along as part of a bipartisan deal last summer to prevent the government from sliding into default.

Romney describes the looming threat as “an arbitrary, across-the-board budget reduction that would saddle the military with a trillion dollars in cuts, severely shrink our force structure, and impair our ability to meet and deter threats. Don’t bother trying to find a serious military rationale behind any of this, unless that rationale is wishful thinking. Strategy is not driving President Obama’s massive defense cuts. In fact, his own secretary of Defense warned that these reductions would be ‘devastating.’ And he is right.” (Mindful of his audience, Romney adds that this will hurt VA health care as well.)

Fine. But is Romney saying John Boehner and Mitch McConnell were wrong to agree to this?

How can it all be Obama’s fault if Romney’s party signed on the dotted line?

Obama tried to exploit this argument in a speech Monday, saying Republicans would "rather protect tax cuts for some of the wealthiest Americans, even if it risks big cuts in our military"--cuts that he also agreed to.
The defense cuts were part of an intricate deal in which both sides swallowed provisions they didn’t want. There are deep domestic spending cuts as well, along with the expiration of all the Bush tax cuts.

The idea was to create such pressure on Congress that a Super Committee would forge a rational plan. Well, you remember what happened with that. Hill leaders could still strike a deal to modify the cutbacks and extend the tax reductions, but there’s no sign of that happening until after the election, if then.

The truth is, Democrats added the defense reductions as a sort of poison pill to force Republicans to seriously negotiate a way of the endless budget crisis, including potential tax increases.

Defense cuts are a perfectly fair target for Romney. But restoring hundreds of billions of dollars in planned reductions, along with the tax cuts he’s pushing, would blow a deeper hole in the deficit. And that needs to be part of the conversation as well.

On August 09 2012 14:17 Elegy wrote:


US defense spending is, when considered to be a percentage of GDP, hardly anything extraordinary.

Discussing the size of the US military in absolute figures is a silly adventure in terribly misleading statistics at best.

On August 09 2012 10:15 xDaunt wrote:

Yes, that was colossally stupid. She should be summarily fired from the campaign for incompetence.

On August 09 2012 16:56 Defacer wrote:


Pakistan also gets a healthy sum from the US annually. They've received 20 billion from the US since September 11th.

As deplorable as that sounds, it's a lot cheaper than say ... having to invade Pakistan to kill Bin Laden.

On August 10 2012 03:54 Kaitlin wrote:


IIRC, we did invade Pakistan to kill Bin Laden, without the knowledge, let alone assistance, of the government of Pakistan.

On August 10 2012 03:31 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Romney is in a lose/lose situation. He can fire Andrea Saul which will mean he further looks weak and in no control of "his" campaign i.e. he looks like a puppet. Or he can keep her and piss conservatives off even more.

On August 10 2012 04:02 Defacer wrote:


By 'invade', I mean having to make a formal declaration of war.

The covert operation to kill Obama could have been interpreted as an act of war. Instead, Pakistan sat on their hands and pretended it was hunky-dory because the US essentially bought their loyalty.

Still a lot cheaper than trying to occupy a country (like Iraq).

On August 10 2012 04:06 darthfoley wrote:


He's just a major fail right now, his campaign is in shambles...