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US War Machine Downsizing?
mrspoonsi writes "BBC Reports: 'Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has unveiled plans to shrink the U.S. Army to its smallest size since before World War Two. Outlining his budget plan, the Pentagon chief proposed trimming the active-duty Army to between 440,000 and 450,000 personnel — from 520,000 currently. The U.S. currently spends more on defense than the combined total of the next 12 countries, as ranked by defense spending.'"
Of Planet Earth is near completion.
The rest can be sub-contracted.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
As Eisenhower warned in his farewell address, I hope this news means we have finally heeded his warning and are moving towards dismantling the military industrial complex. All of that money could be used to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure we have right here at home.
But the style of the war making is changing. Drones, civilian targets, etc.
They are saying that they are downsizing but before it takes affect we get involved in a war. No need to downsize. Problem solved.
Watch all the Repubs scream and shout and throw fits as their favorite military pork programs and campaign contributors face cuts.
Watch them make liars of themselves as they advocate big govt and govt funded jobs held by military contractors.
Or are they just privatizing more military functions?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Wash, Rinse, Repeat
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Spending the money on killing machines doesn't win you anti-bloat points.
Shrink the budget. Shrink the percentage of budget based on adjusted GDP. We're becoming all brawn and no brain.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The money saved from dismantling the MIC will not be spent on the "crumbling infrastructure".
Any money saved will go to welfare projections or pork-barrel projects.
"Those unaware of history are doomed to repeat it", someone once noted. Politicians make promises of "hope and change" but do not deliver. That's why the USA needs statesmen; regrettably, there aren't any and we are doomed to the cycle of politician lies.
And the costs will increase.
Finally The Man is acting like a true progressive. Most of his policies have been either centrist or conservative-leaning (despite Fox/Rush characterizations). Even the "commie" ACA (ObamaCare) was borrowed from the Heritage Foundation and a former Republican governor of MA.
Table-ized A.I.
No, they are genuine cuts in the armed forces. There will be substantial cuts on the civilian side, and overall funding. Sequestration started it.
Future attacks on the US will be handled by diplomatic notes form Secretary of State Kerry expressing strong disapproval.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
They are saying that they are downsizing but before it takes affect we get involved in a war. No need to downsize. Problem solved.
Just what are you implying?
Cutting the Army won't do much to curtail spending. Cutting the Air Force, however...
I worked for an airline. 90%-95% of our pilots and air plant mechanics came from the military. The airline was started by a Marine Aviator and leaded his leadership skills in the Marines. Miniaturization of electronics is the results of war and the MIC. The lowly and common microwave oven is a by-product of war and the MIC. Don't sell the MIC short--the Internet with all its tubes is the invention of, not AlGore, but war and the MIC. The Democrats have benefited from the MIC far more than the Republicans.
Ha! I'm going to beat him to it. I just need to steal some super-rare crystals stored at Los Alamos first, to complete my shrink ray. And a white kitten.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
You joke, but last time this happened the only things that didn't have strong enough advocates in DC to keep the money flowing was trivial stuff like ammo for the troops.
Federal procurement has political issues.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The biggest problem I can see coming from this is the lack of things to fall back on for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines and coast guardsmen.
Not to say they are lazy (well not all of them... I am pretty lazy.). I am a sailor. I supposedly have equivalents to various IT certs that will not fly in most if not all job positions. My only hope is that I can impress someone enough to get a job outside of the military due to what I can do. Despite the "initiatives" most employers would not want this and I am not sure I blame them. I MIGHT be more than worth it but why take the chance? My best bet is the railroad service (They actually don't seem too bad... plus I like trains.). Most other advertisers for GI Jobs are you guessed it minimum wage.
I think this condition mostly exists because before the "boom" times of war (Yeah I hate myself for saying that.) it was not in the best interest for the military to train you with the option to get out. Sadly things rarely change. It is hard to be able to go to college that is not a paper mill or get a trade that can cross over.
Sorry pity party over. At least I have that MGIB! Also at least I am single.... Alot of the people who will be cut will be those near retirement.... with families....
They might outsource.
rewriting history since 2109
Sadly, I think the downsizing of troops is a direct result of un-manned weapons like drones.
I'd me more surprised if it were the marines or the navy seals being downsized. The Army is a lot of bulk manpower that just sits around for the most part and maintains control of areas that have already been seized from the enemy via the attacking efforts of the marines. Advancements of technology means drones and stationary automated turrets can do a lot of that defending work I'd imagine. Just gotta have some protected folks around to maintain control and change the batteries every now and then. Probably way more affordable than actual people. The marines and seals on the other hand can't be so easily replaced by a machine.
If these changes go through, it will actually reduce spending. We spent $670B on "defense" in 2013. This change would get us down to around $500B for the 2015 budget.
This was already passed as a part of the sequester -- this story is really just discussing how the Pentagon plans to get under the limit set by the law. The budget that got passed in December rolled back a few of the sequester cuts, and I'm sure Republicans will push to roll back more. However, the Democrats will want new taxes on the rich to offset any further increases in military spending, and I doubt the Republicans will budge on that front, so any further changes are likely to be minimal.
It looks like this is actually going to happen, and it's about damn time.
However, the Democrats will want new taxes on the rich to offset any further increases in military spending, and I doubt the Republicans will budge on that front, so any further changes are likely to be minimal.
Likewise the Democrats will almost certainly balk at any reforms to social welfare spending, which is the major portion of Federal spending and which dwarfs the defense budget.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Is there any actual connection between military spending before 9/11, in relation to the safety of America, the nation? Not just to American interests in other countries, which I'm of which I'm sure many are directly protected by the US Military, but mainland USA.
I see this rationale used every time there's talk of shrinking military funding; more military funding wouldn't have stopped 9/11, would it have? 9/11 happened due to intelligence failures, government ineptitude and a novel concept, not because America and its interests weren't under guard by the US Armed Forces.
With the US amounting for 50% of army expenses worldwide, and NATO accounting for 80%, it is not obvious where the enemies are.
The USSR does not exist anymore. A much smaller army would protect US security as well as the current one.
He's saying as soon as you appear weak, you are weak.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
... Federal Spending will still increase.
Ken
that's because the next big war will be between the rich and the poor, and live soldiers are less likely to fire on their family, friends and neighbors.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Well, judging from TFA, they are cutting spending for FY 2015 to 496 bln, then raising it to 535, 545 and $559 bln in following years. That means if you deduct the wartime finding for Iran and Afghanistan, the baseline spending level will be back to pre-sequester levels, and as much as the next seven countries in defense spending rank put together.
Not that spending is at all a measure of how much defense we get. One of the things the budget does is it retires the A10 Warthog attack plane which costs less than $18K/flight hour to operate and replaces it with the F-35, which is currently *promised* to cost $32K/flight hour, if it ever becomes combat ready.
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We attacked last week over a EULA violation.
Where will those poor slobs find civilian work? This is America! There are no jobs in America.
Isn't it the same thing? Paying for all that military stuff you wont ever use IS welfare, just welfare for rich people, like Jesus intended.
Seems like the world is getting more dangerous and we are spending money on retirees and freeloaders instead. I'm sure this will end well.
I don't think he was joking. You may think so at your peril.
The last time cuts of this nature were proposed the idea was to entirely stand down the US Marine Corps. (Still beating that drum today).
Because we were never going to have to invade any country again.
Then Saddam over ran Kuwait, and was looking hungrily at Saudi Arabia.
Guess who arrived first ?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
It won't reduce spending.
If you believe that you are delusional.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
At the beginning of the 1st Gulf War, the Marines were just getting the M1 Abrahms tanks the Army was swapping out for newer models (before that the Marines were still on old M60 tanks).
In the late 90's (97-98) the Marines were just starting to get the venerable Singars radios. Up till then they were still using post-Vietnam era AN/PRC-77 radios.
Time and time again the Army goes and asks for more men and money, new gear, etc, because they state they cant accomplish the mission with what they have.
And time and time again the Marine Corps happily takes that "old outdated" equipment with fewer men and exceed... There has long been a rivalry between the branches, but maybe its time for the other branches to take a page out of the Corps manual and learn how to do more with less. You could drop military spending by half at least, if not more, by following the Marines lead.
Why maintain soldiers if they can make the enemy population do the dirty work for them? Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Syria and other arab countries, and probably more to come, all follow the same pattern. And if well you can't tell when or when not they used the weapon they have and are willing to use, you must assume the worst.
BS, I dont trust anything from those Koch sponsored morans. Dont trust the Heritage foundation!
The DOD is asking for an increase in spending from the sequestration level that congress failed to revise in time. They're framing it this way to muddy the water.
No, it really isn't. Maybe you could read this and explain to me how you could hand out free bread and cheese in American cities and achieve the same affect (liberating enslaved Americans)?
Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
A quick check shows that the US army in '38 was 170K. This is much closer to the size that appeared once Europe got going on its continent-wide urban renewal plan.
I don't see how that's relevant. We're talking about negotiations here. Increased military spending and decreased social spending are both things Republicans want.
I was pointing out that the Republicans don't have anything they're willing to trade in order to stem the sequester cuts to military spending. The only way they could stave off the cuts would be by accepting increased taxes, and they're not willing to do that.
I get the feeling you took my comment as a slight against Republicans, and posted some knee-jerk response. I'm only pointing out the reality of the negotiations.
....and increasing the size of Homeland Security.
Until the next Tea Bagger Republican wins the White House and invents WMDs in some third world, oil rich shithole.
He'll tell us we'll be in and out in a year and it'll only cost $60B and will pay for itself. Everyone will believe him, but after 16 years, 8K casualties, and $6T up on smoke we'll still be stuck there.
Here's a better idea: Scale the US Army down to about 100,000, or less. Retain a small full-time force to man the equipment and technology-heavy portions of an army (e.g. armor, artillery and highly-specialized forces), though even most of those can be turned over to national guard forces (especially artillery), and use the rest to form a training and logistics cadre whose job it is to prepare to train and equip an actual army, should we need one.
To make that easier, encourage the unorganized militia to self-train and equip. Expand the Civilian Marksmanship Program, funding more rifle ranges and more competitive shooting events, especially dynamic events like three-gun competitions and others that attempt to simulate the level of fitness and the skills required for combat. Make competitive shooting a widespread high school and college sport.
Of course, a tiny professional army designed to be filled out by quickly recruiting and equipping a large pool of semi-trained civilians is great for defending the nation against invasion, as per the apocryphal quote attributed to Admiral Yamamoto "You cannot invade the mainland United States, there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass", but terrible for projecting force around the world. I happen to think that's a good thing.
This, of course, is a design closer to that which was intended by the authors of the US Constitution.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Likewise the Democrats will almost certainly balk at any reforms to social welfare spending, which is the major portion of Federal spending and which dwarfs the defense budget.
You have some problem with several hundred million people being served, many from their own tax dollars? It is expensive, but in total, not necessarily individual.
But what reforms besides PRWORA would you like to implement? That law was signed by Clinton and had around 50 Democrats (in both House and Senate combined) vote in favor of it. Clinton himself had run on a Welfare reform platform, but was more focused on universal health care, but then we still haven't gotten that, so obviously despite his dictatorial seizure of power, Obama hasn't managed that either.
The bloat in the Pentagon is on such things as $300 toilet. Personell is absolutely the wrong place to make cuts. The cuts to benefit packages will not attract the high quality personnel that is needed by the military. You have some huge white elephants like F35 that could be reduced. Bases are small potatoes in comparison, it is a good deal to keep them open.
Is that the sales pitch they use to keep selling Americans more tanks and missiles that they don't need?
"And here we have a gun with a knife taped to it.
We really have all the guns we need...
You don't want to appear weak do you?
I'll take 100,000 units."
I'm in the wrong business.
who sit in congress will be busy upgrading the Jewish military with our tax dollars.
The problem is that the sequester is 50% defense, 50% everything else, but the defense budget is a minority of the Federal budget. That pushes the cuts disproportionately on the defense side. That could ultimately have some unpleasant consequences.
And the strategy of "taxing the rich" seldom really buys you much.
Note this chart: Top tax rates and total receipts (and do note the source at the bottom: IRS)
While you're at it you many want to examine this chart: Combined corporate tax rates
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
So... is that intended as praise for the marines or to make rather nasty implications about them? Or possibly even as a threat? Because it could be read either way.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
So, they want to retire the A-10, a proven and hardened platform to replace it with what? The bloated and delicate F-35? I'm really afraid how poorly that will go for F-35s tasked with close air support in some future conflict.
The A-10 will be replaced with the military equivalent of Beta. I wish I were joking.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I questioned the Hummer when it first came out - was it really better than the seven Korea era jeeps it cost to build?
Actually, yes. If you're riding through unsecured territory, do you want to be in an armored Hummer with a 50 cal mounted on top, or a light open Jeep with your trusty sidearm?
More important than that, when you ride in to town - do you want to present the image of the open Jeep, or the Hummer?
Even if the F-35 is only a little better than the A-10 at getting the job done, and costs considerably more to operate, does it look more badass while doing it? Does it protect the flight crew better than the A-10?
All that money spent is jobs for the people who aren't on the front line... gotta think like the politicians who make this stuff happen to understand why.
Even better, when you spend it on the rich, it trickles down.
When you spend it on the poor, it just goes to cocaine and hookers.
The thing is that the military has been, for a few decades, the primary means of pumping unquestioned deficit dollars into he US economy. If one complained about the debt, one would be branded a traitor. So when the interests rate were 10% in the 80's, the military was boosted to create jobs. Unfortunately these jobs were expenses not just in interest rates, but in benifits and the fact that after 20 years the tax payer is indebted to the military person for life.
Now that interest rates are 3%, the government makes a profit off borrowing money, there should be a rational for boosting speding and propping up the economy through civil jobs. Military jobs and spending should be seen as extremely wasteful. But we are still in the old mold.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
That means if you deduct the wartime finding for Iran and Afghanistan
Um, do you know something we dont?
Monstar L
Read the pie:
http://www.usgovernmentspendin...
If you call "Healthcare" social welfare spending, you probably should also call "Pensions" military spending (who is getting these pensions?)
Please, enough double talk. The US military budget include offense spending as well as defense spending. It's not 1984 any more.
Dropping the A-10 in favor (I assume) of drones is completely asinine. It's proven technology that has lasted decades. I would take that over any of today's "cutting edge" jets. It's a damn shame.
USA "defense" budget is 90% welfare and employment program. you would be just as safe if it was put into a welfare&jobs program intended for building bridges and roads
In other words, you're claiming that more of the Army budget needs diverted to USACE.
Ha! Good catch.
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Even better, when you spend it on the rich, it trickles down.
Ah, the "trickle down" meme. That's a dishonest meme... what actual "trickle-down economics" means is something else, and there is no one in either party who actually believes that the Government should give money to the rich so it will "trickle down" to the poor.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeleef/2013/12/06/trickle-down-economics-the-most-destructive-phrase-of-all-time/
So instead we hired mercenaries for Iraq and Afghanistan. Take a good look at how many "security consultants" in both countries are actually doing ground combat, including armored vehicle engagements at the start of both wars.
They want to reduce _personnel_. Personnel have to be trained, and are known to sometimes refuse illegal orders, or worse, to send home pictures of illegal orders.
I questioned the Hummer when it first came out - was it really better than the seven Korea era jeeps it cost to build?
Actually, yes. If you're riding through unsecured territory, do you want to be in an armored Hummer with a 50 cal mounted on top, or a light open Jeep with your trusty sidearm?
Neither. You want to be in an MRAP. (At least for some definitions of unsecured.) MRAPs were going to take years in the regular military procurement cycle and Secretary Gates cut through a lot of red tape and fast-tracked them into pretty much the fastest major U.S. military procurement operation in... decades, maybe?
Some procurements are stupid--mostly because of Congressional pork, somewhat because of problems with Defense bureaucracy that keeps front-line needs from being relayed up the chain of command fast-enough and keeps them from being killed in favor of someone's pet project's budget. But some are really an improvement... it very-much takes a case-by-case analysis, both from the view of the soldier on the ground *and* from a more strategic view, planning for all of the forseeable defense-related tasks: counterinsurgency, antipiracy, invasion of a small nation, all-out-war against a major power, peacekeeping, special ops, etc...
The problem is that the sequester is 50% defense, 50% everything else, but the defense budget is a minority of the Federal budget. That pushes the cuts disproportionately on the defense side.
Totally irrational. The fact that the defense budget is a minority of the overall budget does not mean that it is a minority of the waste. The defense sector is filled with bloat, and is essentially just functioning as a make-work program in the districts of influential representatives. It would be far more efficient to take that same money and spend it on more direct social services.
You didn't have to prefix your post with "totally irrational," I was able to identify that quality in your post myself.
Although there may be waste in the defense budget, the defense budget itself is not waste, at least not in the world we live in. There isn't even any real question that the US needs a military to defend itself and protect its citizens. That was clear even by Jefferson's time.
There is a difference between distributing defense spending among districts and "make-work programs." Spending the money on social services doesn't get you any M1 tanks, Apache helicopters, submarines, or destroyers. That is one of the ways you can tell the difference.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The Department of Homeland Security has promised to protect us, and they have a quarter million employees. Oh, wait... They only promised to protect us from ourselves.
Look pal, if you just want to launch off into random political screeds, do it in the shower. No one has said we should abolish the military, and you know it.
Logistics command?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Do you recall who wrote this? -- "It would be far more efficient to take that same money and spend it on more direct social services."
If you're going to have a military, which I'm glad to hear we agree on, you're going to need to equip them suitably for the battlefields of the day if you don't want them to be slaughtered. You don't achieve that by substituting social services spending for military spending. I suspect we could probably agree that it would be preferable if Congress steered less of that spending to specific places instead of where it makes sense. On the other hand the involvement of Congress sometimes produces what ends up as an arguably better outcome compared to the sometimes parochial requests that emerge from just the Federal bureaucracy.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
To paraphrase Albert Einstein, if we have a WWIII all following wars will be fought with sticks and rocks.
good god not this drivel again,
All they did was bob around off the shore and make like targets.
The US armed forces have realized for sometime that the strength of armed forces has little to do with numbers of people in uniform.
The same methods that companies like Ford use to produce more cars year after year with fewer people also apply to the military, only more so because Ford factories don't have to be deployable. Speed, technology and mobility >>> raw numbers.
but I expect it to be turned into tax cuts for the top 1%... We're not spending on infrastructure now. Getting us to start would take a large scale expansion of the federal gov't, just the sort that's politically unpopular right now. There's not enough profit in it to bring private industry to the table. I think the term is "idle capacity". The US economy is sorta winding down. There's only so much money you can make, and if you're already rich it pays to sit on your wealth and use it to broker power deals :(.
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I'm not sure what's going to happen when all that money exits the US Economy. It's kinda scary actually. There's an overpowering sentiment in America that if you didn't do something unpleasant to get money you didn't earn it. There's also a _lot_ of racism floating around (Welfare Queen == "Black Person", it's called Dog Whistling...).
I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you'll never get enough votes behind it...
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95% of pensions is Social Security.
Military pensions is a tiny number because they don't really amount to anything until you have 20 years or more service. Few people serve that long.
Sorry, but your history is a bit off.
Only 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade was afloat as part of the deception plan. As to the rest ...
V: "THUNDER AND LIGHTNING"- THE WAR WITH IRAQ
The 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions, each more than 18,000 strong, and the U.S. Army 1st Brigade ("Tiger Brigade"), 2nd Armored Division, plunged into the attack. They were supported by the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and thousands of combat service support staff from the 1st and 2nd Force Service Support Groups, and by Navy air forces.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
As usual, the Founding Fathers were right. The US shouldn't have a standing army, because having an army creates a need for the army to "do something", and gets you into wars, wasting money and corrupting Democracy. Of course, there should be a structure ready, with equipment, training, etc., so that in an actual time of war we can mobilize the population. But really, when was the last time the US faced a land invasion that required immediate response? :-)
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
The Air Force brass *never* wanted the A-10, the A-10 was virtually forced upon them. There has never been a moment in time since the A-10 first flew that they were not trying to be rid of it.
My understanding is that A-10s undergo a lot more mechanical stress during training and combat than B-52s and that the A-10 fleet is seeing a lot of micro-fractures in key structural areas. They have been cannibalizing old planes in storage but that source is just about dried up. They are at the point where they will need to manufacture new components, major components like wings. This is letting the brass finally get their way.
That should save lots of money.
Be sure to wipe the drives, burn the backup tapes, sell the old hardware and fire all former employees (in that order). We wouldn't want the NSA to slip back into the mess it's currently in.
New World Order throwing America to the dogs, watch while the dollar turns to shit, but they got no problem financing Ukraine.
You ARE in the wrong business! I make guns with knifes taped to them. We call them Joint Strike Fighters and I have made a hell of a lot of money these past 2 years.
These cut are a step in the right direction, But I would love to see them cut the size in half. I'm an American and do not like what we have been doing in the years since 9/11. That being said there are a lot of countries that rely on the U.S. to be their protectors and I am tired of that also. So many countries can afford to be prosperous because they don't need to spend much on military, let them fund their own military and we can spend our money here, where we need it. All our military is really doing is pissing the rest of the world off anyway.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
How hath thy 6 digit self forgotten thy history? When we rolled into Iraq and Afghanistan the HMMVs had no armor. Soldiers were dying left and right from harassing fire and IEDs. The problem was so bad in the first couple years that the units themselves would take blown up HMMVs and use them to make armor for the HMMVs that didn't get destroyed. We did finally start getting the current armor sets and turrets that your post refers to, but those were afterthoughts and the vehicles chassis and powertrain had a lot of problems dealing with all of that extra weight. Luckily, as Etherwalk below mentions, we now have several MRAP vehicles that exceed HMMVs, jeeps, and the CUCVs of yore because they were designed to carry that armor, have those turrets, and even built with functioning air conditioning! I guess my point was, if choosing between a jeep or a hummer, there really is no difference. Oh and the A10 is the greatest plane EVAR, period, end of story. It's better than the goddamned Space Shuttle. :)
I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic, AC. Don't have a cow man!
The US Navy and Marine Corp are "merged" in some ways, command, procurement, etc. Together they represent the Naval Services commanded by the Department of the Navy.
For example look at Marine Corp Aviation. Marine pilots are trained at the same schools along side Navy pilots and the Navy and Marines essentially fly the same aircraft. Marine squadrons are often deployed on aircraft carriers. There is one notable difference with respect to Marine pilots. They must first become infantry officers before starting aviation training.
The Coast Guard also falls under the Department of the Navy when directed to do so by the President. This happened during WW1 and WW2. Normally the Coast Guard is performing missions that the military is prohibited from doing, law enforcement for example.
No one buys hollow points for target practice.
Fox news is an oxymoron.
Let's pretend that the social security act wasn't "to blame". So what, it's still completely screwed.
We know how many 50 year old people we have. Therefore, we know how many 70 year old people we'll have in twenty years, and we know we're screwed.
If you insist on talking about blame, the social security program was based on the premise that you could send trillions of dollars to Washington and they wouldn't spend it. Does that really sound like a good idea? That's like saying I left my new car, with the engine running, on MLK and it's not my fault that it got stolen. I suppose MORALLY I wouldn't be in the wrong, but any idiot knows what happens to a new car left unattended in crackville, and to money that's sent to Washington.
The U.S. currently spends more on defense than the combined total of the next 12 countries, as ranked by defense spending.
But that isn't really a fair comparison. After all, a lot of that spending is really for aggression, not defense.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
There will always be little brush wars, but future wars will mostly be economic. This may be good for the people. To fight an economic war, the infrastructure needs to be strong. This means good cheap communication and fast cheap transportation. Labor needs to be productive, and happy people are more productive. This is also where it can turn ugly. Totalitarianism is the other direction the country can take.
The countries have come to realize that physical war is no longer profitable.
There are plenty of other vehicles such as the Bushmaster that have proved themselves to be superior to the Hummer under the same conditions. However one of the companies involved with that one is French (cue Freedom fries bullshit), then there's the "lobby money" which other purely US based options were not putting in the right pocket.
If you want to see corruption and political interference on a massive scale take a look at military procurement. Ask a recent vet about their gear and what they saw allied countries had you'll get some interesting answers. A lot of US military equipment was not chosen for suitability and is inferior to some of the things that relatively impoverished allied forces are using.
It's been decades since the USA has bankrolled the war effort of Iran (how many hundred million was that ransom for the Tehran hostages) and Afghanistan (Mujahadeen which let to a variety of hassles including the Taliban).
I get that you don't mean that, and in fact mean Iraq and the most recent part of the conflict there, but I thought I'd push the barrow of unintended consequences when there's too much money to splash around on offshore adventure.
You are getting the poor mixed up with congressmen and wall street bigwigs.
In the last days of the USSR it's what the communists wanted, and did, as well.
They're quite willing to fire on "liberals" "socialists" "rebels" or whatever the bogeyman is today. And of course they'll be sent to a different part of the country then where they're from.
History is full of armies shooting on civilians to the point where it really stands out when they refuse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Oh and the A10 is the greatest plane EVAR, period, end of story. It's better than the goddamned Space Shuttle. :)
Don't get me wrong: I love the A-10 and think the F-35 should be cancelled immediately. That said, it isn't strong praise to compare the A-10 to the Space Shuttle. Perhaps comparing it to the Mustang, the Corsair, or "pretty much anything else but that design-by-committee STS debacle"?
Well they could have told the Kuwaitis to stop stealing oil, told Saddam that it is not OK to invade Kuwait and while about it, pushed for human rights in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
America really bends down to the Saudis too much, hate to think about when they get nukes, a couple of American cities nuked, Iran flattened and women still not allowed to drive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I think it would be more prudent to eliminate the branch concept entirely, which would eliminate all redundancies and end the stupid inter-branch rivalry BS. One unified military.
Sure they did. Sit on your ass blowing up people your superiors have demonized all day and get free money from the govt at the end if you claim you have PTSD. What an absolute crock.
not only on the republican side but also in brains of a large section of US population.
The thought, just the idea in one's head that something can be sorted out without "power" will be considered a weakness which cannot be tolerated.
That's totally independent from the money made on military and the forces behind.
Just looking at the near east idiocy coming purely out of conditioned structures in people brains.
All pretty desolate I'd say....
As if there would not be enough to do in this country - deteriorating infrastructure, alternative energy use just skimping along and partially failing making some folks feeling good...
especially drones spraying chemtrails
That first graph isn't without its critics, it looks as though both the scale and the points in time that are labelled have been chosen to smooth over changes in tax revenue over time. Setting the scale at 100% does allow one to fit both a marginal tax rate of 90% and 28% within the same chart, but it does obscure significant-looking swings between 15 and 21% in revenue. Whether these changes in revenue were directly related to the marginal tax rate I don't know, though this author thinks they are:
http://www.newrepublic.com/blo...
Theres a massive difference.....
Id rather a bridge that didnt fall down, rather than another parking lot of tanks that will never see any action slowly rusting away.
If I remember correctly, I think it was called "The Fall of the Roman Empire".
Meanwhile, China continues to outspend the US (on a GDP per-capita, currency-adjusted basis) by a 3:1 margin on military development and expansion...
Better start learning Chinese...
It's a start but we really don't need to be the police of the world. We can cut our military spending by 90% and still have plenty of power to destroy any other country, terrorist group, protect our borders, etc.
Then that $500Billion could be put to long term infrastructure improvement and other productive developments.
Those can be very useful for quick strikes. As long as you're not actually occupying foreign soil, your point is well mad But wars of occupatio0n take manpower, as demonstrated in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the second Iraq war. And don't be mistaken, the USA didn't "win" any of those. In Iraq and Afghanistan now, the US is "declaring victory" and leaving a mess that is, in some ways, worse than when the wars started. Sadam Hussein, as much of a genocidal dictator as he was, didn't allow the Taliban to operate within Iraq. Now they're an integral part of Iraq politics.
Those are problems that air strikes and drone strikes don't solve, they exacerbate.
No, they are genuine cuts in the armed forces. There will be substantial cuts on the civilian side, and overall funding. Sequestration started it.
Future attacks on the US will be handled by diplomatic notes form Secretary of State Kerry expressing strong disapproval.
Uh, when exactly was the last attack on the US? In a conventional military sense, I think that was in WWII. Sure, there have been terrorist incidents since then, and there will be in the future. I don't really see a big military as doing much to deter terrorism. What it mostly seems to be needed for is being the world police, or for being pushy with foreign policy.
At a worst case of about 80,000, the US ARMY is downsizing more people than are employed in the Royal Canadian Army, Navy, and,/i> Air Force put together.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Since in the past SSA paid for the tax shortfall of the tax cut to the rich, now that SSA has a shortfall, the only reputable thing to do is to tax the rich to make up the shortfall.
Just like in the 90's the cuts will be in the lower enlisted combat and support ranks instead of the bloated O5's and above. Cut from the top down, that is where the real waste and costs are.
No good deed goes unpunished.
China, now is your time, attack USA and take the lead. All empires end, and USA has ran out of time!!
And of course they'll be sent to a different part of the country then where they're from.
Then what happened?
"Then vs than", care of theoatmeal.com
It is important to remember that of the "12 next countries in spending...." 10 of them are our ALLIES (and have been for over 100 years.)
There aren't NEARLY enough wealthy people to tax to get us out of this hole. Not unless you use the worldwide definition of wealthy, in which case practically everyone on Slashdot is the 1%. Wealthy people have millions. We've overspent by TRILLIONS. Notice the six decimal place difference. You'd need a million dollars from 10 million people get out of the hole. We don't HAVE 10 million uberwealthy people to take a million dollars from.
You may recall last year Obama proposed a "tax the rich" plan that would have categorized a public school teacher and a firefighter as "rich". That's why. There are only 50 people on the Forbes 50.
That's not even considering the fact that rich people don't have their money in cash, they own companies. To take their wealth, you need to take their company. Guess what happens to employees when you take the company away? Removing resources from the very people who grow those resources has very real and very damaging effects.
.... the liberal downsize-the-military mindset is all nice and good, until you get attacked. Then you have to open the floodgates of recruitment and try to get a whole lot of new people up to speed to recover the level of capability needed to accomplish the mission. Even if we don't use all of our advanced equipment, the US military is the biggest most reliable job and life training program, ever. And our investment in military capability lets all of the good people in the world sleep peacefully at night, and makes the bad guys have nightmares.
Good news and all I see is negative comments and sniping. If the US was as evil as half of you seem to think then you'd be a lot less inclined to post this crap to a public forum - especially with what we know about NSA snooping and such.
No no no no no! You're talking about the defense procurement process. Honest to god, fuck procurement. It's that fucking disaster of a bureaucracy that has produced such fuckups as the F-35 boondoggle, the Navy's super-overpriced littoral combat ships, and the fucking idea that you can use a Humvee as anything other than a glorified jeep by slapping some armor on the side.
If we just remove that whole thing we could save billions. Problem is you're treading on someone's private empire, and really, what better system can we replace it with? I've got a very open mind on this one, but it's really a difficult problem.
I wonder what the poster/article author's agenda may be? Since this is /. I expect such. What would be amazing is a story titled "US entitlement machine" down-sizing. That would be fucking amazing.
Conservative, mod down for violating
I don't know. I would rate the AC-130 Spectre as the greatest plane ever. A-10 is a runner up though.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
It's a flying tank "killer", but the Army don't want it either, not enough contractors involved to make it wantable.
First, I'm going to say I'm all for reductions in military spending. No objections drawing down the military machine and redeploying those funds to more productive uses for the economy.
However, I do want to address what I view as the misinterpretation that the United States is somehow starving infrastructure and education spending. Contrary to popular belief, the US dumps huge amounts of resources into both. The US spends 3.3% of its GDP on infrastructure, on par with nations like Canada and Germany. In education, the US spend $1,000B a year in education spending, ~$200B more a year on education than on all combined defense, veteran and civil defense spending. I don't think the question for the United States is whether or not the government spends sufficient resources, but it's more a question of how those resources are allocated and spent. It's a question of geographic and socioeconomic distribution as well as effectiveness of spending.
Air craft without pilots, ships of war without human crews, soldiers in the field replaced with machines will create a much larger and more potent military with far fewer humans involved. The nature of war has changed quite a bit but our ability to sting an enemy is on the increase.
You really expect the army and marines to drop the last of the harriers? Thats the only one that can operate effectively off a torn up airfield. A stal acft like the 35 is way to expensive to work off a plowed field. Better yet, the kamikaze drone, or a reimplementation of a copperhead shell.
But I do think they are reducing the military in the wrong way. They will close bases, mass implement reductions on all except the amount of money spent, We will have to hire more contractors, and reduce expectations, of the best in the world. We may even outsource to china. Lower cost of manpower.
But the closing will reinforce the needs that we have now. Like a draft. Like an effective reserves and National Guard system. We have gotten away from the citizen soldier. The soldier next door. We need them back. Not the generals, we had too many of them during the buildup to WW 2. And we were lucky to have the ones needed in the right positions then. We are not so lucky now. Since Schwarzkopf there have been no troop generals. just perfumed princes. And its starting to show.
Like the Healthcare and Finance reforms, this is a step in the right direction, but we should be doing much better (thanks, Republicans) The F-35 is already way over budget and it is predicted to cost 1.5 trillion over the planned lifetime, This is for a tool that barely works. The brilliance of the evil plan was spreading production to almost every state so each one will have a stake in the pork.
http://www.vanityfair.com/poli...
The difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be plausible.
No kidding. We also have more presence helping the rest of the world as well. ( one can debate if we are helping or not, but the point remains we are there.. and that takes resources )
In general i am not for reducing our military as the world is a dangerous place and i dont want to be caught with our pants down, but if it means we can stop mucking about with ungrateful piss-ant counties, then ill get on board.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Actually, if the income limit on FICA were lifted, SS would be uber-solvent. So much, that we could LOWER the retirement age.
Perhaps they are planning on needing electronic or stealth defensive capabilities that the A-10 doesn't have. Maybe there are more shoulder fired missiles out there now.
... and fake Islamists - like in Syria?
Even if the F-35 is only a little better than the A-10 at getting the job done
It pretty much isn't: it has a much smaller payload and a lower loiter time. Also, unless you get the VTOL version with even less payload (and higher fuel consumption), the A10 can take off from much worse strips.
don't forget that Fuel==logistics, so high fuel use is exceptionally bad.
Also the A10 is slow, which means that for ground attack, it doesn't just zip past the target and have to turn around for another pass nearly as much.
does it look more badass while doing it?
Basically no as well. The F35 looks like you're run of the mill fast jet which everyone's seen by now. The A10 looks like has a piece of rotating naval artilllery attached to the front.
Also for stealthyness, the F35 has internal weapons bays. The A10 comes out positively bristling with dangerous looking ordinance.
If you're going for general badassery, then the A10 looks the part.
It looks much more badass in the same way that battleship looks more badass than a missile cruiser.
Does it protect the flight crew better than the A-10?
No. It has stealth which stops people shooting at it when it's a long way off with SAMs in a relatively short band. The thing with close air support is the close part: you have to get in there to make sure you're blasting away at the enemy not the nearby friendly troops (otherwise it's not close and you could happily blast away at them with a high flying B52, long range missiles, drones, artillery or anything else). Close means you can be identified and targetted visually.
And the A10 provides much, much more durability than the F35. It has a substantial amount of armour, a lot of redundancy and can fly missing one engine, half a wing and one of the vertical stabilisers.
Basically, the F35 isn't a close air support aircraft, it's a stealth strike fighter.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Maybe the executive branch should just unilaterally put off getting under the limit. It worked for Obamacare - why not this too?
And the strategy of "taxing the rich" seldom really buys you much.
Note this chart: Top tax rates and total receipts (and do note the source at the bottom: IRS)
Great, now overlay that chart with the gini co-efficient and tell me that top marginal rates have no effect. You're right that they don't increase total receipts, but they have a huge impact on who pays the bills. Obviously there are diminishing returns, at some point tax avoidance becomes more important that investment returns and that's counter-productive but we're no where near that transition at the moment.
Ahhhh yes, those poor rich people. Here they are barely able to keep up the payments on the island nation they bought and I suggest they should pay taxes too.
Those trillions that were overspent? A lot of it went into the pockets of the very people that I suggest we tax.
That sounds like time for a modernization effort ...
And strengthen the landing gear, make the wings fold and add a tail hook so it can be used by the Marines. Their aircraft are required to be carrier capable. Being a land based bird is what prevented them from getting the A-10 in the past.
Most people only ever hear a snippet warning about a "military industrial complex" and they absorb the propaganda interpretations of their former-hippie high school teachers, before spending the rest of their life pretending they know what the speech was about. Those of us who listened to the ENTIRE speech and/or read the ENTIRE transcript IN CONTEXT can spot the idiots who have not in a second.
Eisenhower was warning about a new era in which large permanent funding streams to BOTH defense contractors AND the science community and government dependence upon the work of BOTH groups had the potential to be corrupting and that there was a danger BOTH that defense contractors would drive policy because that would drive a need for their products AND people in the scientific community would attempt to push policies rather than just providing information to the people and theri elected officials. Eisenhower was a very bright guy, and a very steady and wise hand, and was right on BOTH warnings (see: DHS, TSA, "War on terror", "War on coal", Anthropogenic Global Warming, etc)
People who only focus on 1/2 of Eisenhower's warning are cherry-picking a quote to support a personal anti-military or anti-US-power belief, rather than embracing Eisenhower and therefore ought to simply state their opposition without the partial quote. Abusing a quote does note grant the legitimacy some people think it does.
that's because the next big war will be between the rich and the poor, and live soldiers are less likely to fire on their family, friends and neighbors.
[citation needed]
This should be good...
...when the police have tanks. Our government's next big enemy is domestic.
People who say junk like this have either never served or have a very small-scope view of things and are, therefore, displaying their ignorance.
First, I'll address the Coast Guard: The Coast Guard is NOT part of the DoD; they are a non-military entity of the Department of Transportation. They have weapons (just like the police have weapons, but are NOT part of the Army) and they often have hardware, training, and procedures commonality with the military (both because that's cost-effective AND because the Coast Guard can be integrated with the Navy in war time) BUT their job is more akin to a blend of the border patrol and "first responders" (police,fire,paramedics) than military. Because they are NOT part of the military, they CAN operate within the US and against American Civilians just like the FBI. Anybody who wants to merge the Coast Guard into the military is an idiot who does not "get" the basic divisions of power in the US government. Most Americans like the "warm and fuzzy" pseudo-civilan feel of the Coast Guard and feel they can call on it like they can call on the fire department.
Now the Marine Corps: The Marine Corps is NOT a separate branch of the military! THEY ARE PART OF THE U.S. NAVY! The nation's founders created the Navy and the Marine Corps, with the Marines being "naval soldiers". Aboard ship, the navy men ran the ship and operated its big guns, while the marines climed the rigging and sniped at sailors abord enemy ships, or fought on deck to repel boarders, or boarded boats to land on shore to take-on coastal enemies of the Navy. The modern Marines do essentially the modern versions of these things. Marine pilots are actually "naval aviators" just like regular navy pilots, they are trained together, etc. The military has learned the hard way (repeatedly) that it is very important to have BOTH types of aviators because some elements of human nature are hard to overcome and the different functions require different training and practice once you get past iniitial training and into the fleet. Marine pilots focus on operations over the shore supporting their brother Marines on the ground, particularly with "close air support" (while being capable of other things like fleet defense), while Navy pilots must focus more on fleet defense and striking strategic targets ashore (while being capable of other things like supporting troops ashore).
Now the Army/Air Force: They USED to be a unified branch, and that was proven sub-obtimal That experiment was already run! The bombers the US operated in WWII over Europe were NOT aircraft of the U.S. Air Force (which did not yet exist) but were U.S. Army Air Corps bombers. One of the many lessons to come from WWII was that Army Generals were crappy commanders for a high-tech aerial war fighting force, (and another was that officers used to leading men in the sky were no good at running land operations). The creation of the U.S. Air Force from the air elements of the Army WAS A REFORM!
EVERY TIME this sort of "let's merge some military branches and we'll save money" thing arises and gets a serious study (as opposed to a "study" by some lawyers or political activists or lobbyists) it falls apart. The amount of money spent on things like marine and navy pilots having different uniforms is simply negligible relative to the federal budget and even changine THAT has negative impact (the Marines actually learned that having their pilots wear the same uniforms as their "ground pounder" brothers had a pshycological impact that led to more accurate close-air-support weapons delivery).
The social spending of the Federal Government overtook the defense budget long ago... you could eliminate the ENTIRE U.S. military and the nation would still be running annual budget deficits at this point. The U.S. Military is already a smaller portion of the federal budget than it has been in a century and the Navy, for example, has fewer ships now than it has had in the lifetimes of most Slashdotters. It would be GREAT to stop
Social security is "self funded" by FICA taxes....
Isn't it better to keep people working these whatever jobs so they at least FEEL like they are earning the money, as opposed to taking these jobs, and spreading the money out to everyone without a job?
Really, it is best to just privatize a lot of the functions of the military that can be. The private companies will find a way to get more per dollar and we'll ultimately have a more robust, efficient military then we did with all the bloat and waste.
Of course there will always be some bloat and waste but its best to keep that to a minimum. Drones will ultimately take over for a lot of our military and ultimately, that is better for our soldiers and likely our pocket book.
Isn't strong praise?! It is the only "plane" that has ever went boldly where no man has gone before!
*ahem*
THIS. IS. SLASHDOT!
Lockmart can make BILLIONS selling defective, over-budget, under-performing F-35's (and then make BILLIONS more "upgrading" them to get closer to the performance originally promised when they won the bid) which, in turn, means lots of campaign cash, lobbying, employee-voters for politicians OF BOTH PARTIES in the districts where Lockmart AND their suppliers are located.
Republic Aviation, on the other hand, was rewarded for their exceptional rugged and capable low-cost A-10 design with a few nostalgic internet web pages and corporate oblivion; they have no employees or lobbyists or suppliers.
We, as a nation, are paying a HIGH price for all the "down-sizing" and the "peace dividends" of BOTH the Republican George Herbert Walker Bush(41 NOT 43) AND the Democrat William Jefferson Clinton administrations. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, BOTH presidents slashed the military to get money for other things and the sudden steep decline in military contracts led to a huge contraction of the defense industry. As this rapid (and not-well-planned/managed) contraction occurred, the government was warned that strategic national capabilities would be lost, and in response the government decided to allow lots of mergers (rather than slowing the contraction and actively managing it to BOTH preserve the capabilities AND preserve competition). The result is that we now have, essentially only 3 major contractors (Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Northrop-Grumman) and they neatly avoid competing too much with eachother (THAT would push prices down... BAD for everybody but the taxpayer).
Social Security has NOT saved the federal budget, you idiot, it is (and always has been)required by law to "invest" in government debt instruments (which do NOT create wealth and therefore do not grow in value other than via inflation) because anything else would be the most corrupt action ever undertaken by government: investing the money on Wall St would give a president the power to pick-and-choose winners and losers in the markets and completely manipulate the entire economy. NO president of ANY party would be able to resist that power and we'd become the world's worst "banana republic" overnight. When FDR created Social Security, he had the alternative to create actual individual retirement accounts (something Republicans supported) which people would own and the government could never loot/raid, but he chose the monolithic scheme we have with its phony accounts (notice your "account" has no PIN number or password?) precisely because it would give government power and provide a huge influx of tax dollars for decades.... he and his political allies would gain power and be long dead before it would collapse. Social Security would have already collapsed had the Reagan administration not reformed it a bit with the cooperation of Tip O'Neal and the moderate Democrats who used to exist, but they knew (and warned at the time) that the fix was only a temporary band-aid to give the American people more time to solve the problem. That time has been squandered; no more reforms have happened.
The fact that it must invest in government debt, has made Social Security a very convenient tool for politicians of both parties to enable them to spend more money buying votes with government services than they'd be able to without SS. In it's basic structure, Social Security is a fiscally impossible pyramid scheme that is absolutely guaranteed to collapse at some point (leaving some future generation devestated) just as certainly as a raw egg dropped from the roof of a building is guaranteed to go splat. All the way down, if you check on the falling egg, you will see that "all is well" and if you choose to be deluded and not look ahead to the concrete below you would say "nothing's wrong! you people predicting a splat are just conspiracy nuts!" but the simple fact is this: the basic laws of economics, like the law of gravity, cannot be violated.
I think the problem is that the STS boldly went where many other vehicles had gone before, but did it poorly and more expensively. It basically required a major overhaul after each flight and its design was heavily impeded by functionality requirements imposed by the Air Force that were never used in practice.
I suppose I would summarize your praise of the A-10 as tantamount to comparing an amazingly reliable, well-designed, and effective car (the A-10) to a classic Jaguar that's luxurious, expensive, and constantly broken (the Space Shuttle). Yes, the comparison can work, but it sends mixed messages.
YMMV.
Congratulations! You've won the "stupidest comment I've seen on slashdot today award!"
This is a disingenuous as "the average person doesn't have their money in cash, they own a house. To take their wealth, you need to take their house".
The wealth of the ultra-rich has increased substantially over the past 50 years, without a corresponding increase in employment. So if increasing the wealth of rich people doesn't have a corresponding increase in employment, why would you believe that decreasing their wealth would have a corresponding decrease? Do you have any evidence for this remark?
The politicians will like the savings until they realize that a base will be closed in their state or riding then they will oppose them. No politician is going to volunteer to have a base shut down or reduced in capacity in their area. They are more concerned about getting re-elected.
It's like the tanks that the army doesn't want. The jobs are spread out over such a wide area that there's so many politicians who are fighting to keep the program alive even though it's a waste of money.
It's relevant because the Democrats already got what they wanted, but gave nothing back in "negotiation". Obamacare was a big program they wanted, and it included tax hikes on the rich. They got another tax hike on the rich during the fiscal cliff catastrophe. They also got the sequester. Moreover, when Democrats passed programs they wanted (like the minimum wage hike), it didn't come with corresponding cuts elsewhere. The things Republicans have wanted in response (entitlement reform or Obamacare changes) were completely ignored and/or left off the table. The "reality" of the political situation these past 8 years have been almost entirely one-sided. That's the problem. Dems demand new multi-trillion dollar programs and think throwing a few pennies at the Republicans in the way of pork riders is fair/compromise/negotiation. Seriously, look at how much revenue has increased in the past 8 years (significantly higher). Now look at spending (relatively flat, with projections that spike going forward). You call that give-and-take?
What the hell are you talking about "poor rich people"? Are you illiterate, or just really, really bad at arithmetic?
Let's me try saying it Dr. Seus style for you:
Not enough rich.
We're really in the ditch.
Trillion is more than billion.
Billion is more than million.
There are 20 billionaires in the US. The US is $17 TRILLION in the hole. You could take 100% of everything that Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Waltons, and all of the other billionaires own and you'd still not cover 1% of the hole we're in.
To get out of the shithole, we'd need a 100% tax on 17,000 billionaires. We have 20 billionaires, not 17,000. See the problem with your idea now? We'd need a thousand times as many rich people.
I know, I know, how about MILLIONAIRES!? A lot of people want to have about $40,000 / year for 25 years of retirement, so they've saved. Some people who are getting ready to retire have a million or so. Since they've got the million they'll need to last 25 years, they must be greedy rich people too, right? What happens if we take all of their money too? If we go ahead and take all of the retirement funds from all of those rich millionaires (and let granny starve), that would all add up to ....
$12 trillion.
We're STILL $5 trillion short even if we count everybody who saved for retirement as "greedy rich people".
There just isn't $17 trillion to take from anyone. There's not NEARLY enough "rich people" to cover the massive fuck up that washington has created. A hundred times as many rich people still wouldn't have enough money to cover this. We'd need a THOUSAND times as many rich people as we have.
So if defining "rich" as "anyone who saved for retirement" still isn't enough money, how can we define "rich" so as to gather enough money from rich people to fix the problem? Well, to have enough money to cover Washington's stupidity, we end having to define "rich" as $30,000 - $40,000. Unfortunately, there's just one Oprah, one Bill Gates, and neither of them have even one trillion dollars, much less seventeen trillion.
True, if you reduce the limit to $0, nobody gets their money paid back and it doesn't go broke. Of course, you've also just screwed everybody. You took their money from their paycheck, promising to give it back when they are old, them just said "screw you, we're keeping you're money". That would work.
Are you intentionally obtuse? I mean no upper limit. Take FICA on every last dollar. Right now, they only tax the first $112K (approx), so the poor get taxed on all their money, while the rich only get taxed on some of it.
Ah, that DOES make more sense. I'm not sure why I read it the other way. From what I've read, that would really keep, though it wouldn't quite get us there.
Right now, the amount paid out at retirement is partially related to the amount the person paid in. Payments would have to be adjusted so that if someone pays in a LOT, they get back a medium amount - nobody gets back a lot, even if they paid in a LOT. By increasing the tax and reducing the maximum benefit ratio, it could be brought into balance.
Also, the "rough draft" of the math that says it might cover the shortfall misses an important factor. People adapt. I'm going to use some rough numbers that are easy to follow to illustrate one way they do rather than precise numbers. Assume a company budgets $200,000 in payroll expenses for an engineer. They pay 6.5% of the first $100K for FICA ($6,500). That leaves $193,500 as his gross pay. If you take FICA on the entire $200K budgeted, he grosses $187. Either way, he then pays his side of the FICA, but the higher employer FICA means he's now paying tax on a smaller income ($187 versus $193). That makes a small difference.
He then pays his side of the FICA and is left with either $187 or $180. He isn't stupid, so he sees that the new law is going to take $7,000 from him. Knowing that, he talks to his boss about trading that raise he was promised for some more vacation time instead. Maybe instead of that $5,000 bonus ($3,300 after taxes), the company will pay for his family to join him at the conference in Hawaii. There are all sorts of ways people will adapt, but adapt they will. The sum total of all of those people responding to the new taxes, attempting to reduce how much it effects them, will in fact do just that - it will reduce the amount the government takes. Millions of people will be motivated to find ways to reduce the tax burden and many will do so.
Still, it would get pretty close to fixing the problem, assuming it were done IMMEDIATELY, while some baby boomers are still working, and assuming the employment situation improves. With so many people having left the workforce in the last six years, there are relatively fewer people to tax than there were ten years ago.
Like most debts, it'll have to be paid off over time, not by liquidating people. We were doing a decent job of it until Reagan. Clinton had us back in the right direction again but Bush went on a spree and blew it out of the water.
It might also help if we resign as world policeman and hand out our rate card.
You still seem to be having trouble grasping the concept of "trillion", but that's okay - most people have trouble reasoning about such large numbers.
2007 budget deficit: $163 billion
2012 budget deficit: $1.1 trillion
In the last six years, we've overspent more than the combined total of the previous 200 years. I guess you're a fan of Jon Stewart because you talk about "Bush blew it out of the water". EVERY YEAR Obama racks up more debt than Bush did in all eight years combined. Bush sucked, don't misunderstand. When it comes to fiscal irresponsiblity, Obama sucks over eight times as bad.
$17 trillion dollars of debt incurs interest every year. Even if we cut spending in half to get back to actual balanced budgets like we had 50 years ago*, the existing debt would grow by $200 billion in interest every year. We aren't gradually paying it off. We were gradually increasing it until Obama doubled it, and now due to interest it grows itself. There simply aren't anywhere near enough rich people to make a dent in $17 TRILLION.
* In case you fell for Jon Stewart's joke, look at the national debt chart. You'll see it grew during the Clinton years too. Clinton claimed a "balanced budget" when one year the spending was equal to the BORROWING plus the revenue. By that logic, if you earn $50K, spend $50K, and borrow $50K that's a balanced budget.
I mistyped that last sentence. That should of course be earn $50, spend $100, and borrow $50. That's government's version of a "balanced budget", at least under Clinton.
Your entire comment is answerable with one wikipedia link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Please help metamoderate.
War and occupation are two different things. There is no such thing as a 'war of occupation'.
And yes, the US did win the wars in Korea and Afghanistan.
The problem with Afghanistan is there was never a plan or hope or an idea of what to to do with it after achieving a military victory. These are political problems that have no solution addressable by military force. More soldiers certainly is NOT the answer. The Soviets had a far greater force in Afghanistan than we ever did. What result did they achieve? Bankruptcy and collapse of the USSR would be a good first approximation.
The results in Afghanistan are an illustration of the basic stupidity of going to war with no idea what you are going to do after you win the war.
Actually, the debt was shrinking once inflation was considered. I'm not saying it was sinking like a stone, just that it was in the right direction. I do like Jon Stewart, but only watch occasionally. The phrase was my own when I look at the graph. I would like to see Obama do better, but must admit he inherited an economic disaster that struck shortly before he took office. Chalk at least part (but not all) of that up to bush being asleep at the switch for 8 years while a small minority was screaming OMG, this bubble will kill us if we don't start regulating the market.
Yes, over Clinton's entire time in office the total debt went up. SURPRIZE! it took a while to turn a bad decade long trend around. It is undeniable though that had Bush maintained Clinton's fiscal responsability the debt would have continued downward. In fact, had Bush held the line it would have been the lowest it's been since 1940, BUT he didn't. He gave out crazy tax cuts to the people who needed them least and and out of gratitude they pocketed it rather than boosting the economy. Had he and Obama stuck to the plan it would be paid off by now.
Who knows, if we can restrain ourselves from spending billions fondling children and blowing stuff up, we may yet pay it off.
It's been an interesting discussion, thanks.
> I do like Jon Stewart, but only watch occasionally.
Sometimes he's funny. Please keep in mind that he's an entertainer with a political twist who gets ratings by "trolling", exactly like Rush Limbaugh. They both do the same thing, they both do it well, and they both put a low priority on accuracy. Please, listen to him the same way you'd listen to Rush, or any political cartoonist, and don't slip off into believing the silliness. You seem like you're smart enough to recognize that for what it is.
the US has been attacking weaker countries for decades now, talking about Defence is bs.
Asian countries just know they are next on the "terrorists attack US" or "receive democracy with bombs" list, they don't want to be the next Iraq/Iran/Afgan/Syria... etc
It's always amazed me how little the topic of eliminating the upper limit is discussed when SS comes up. They always talk about reducing benefits, means-testing, and increasing the retirement age, when lifting the cap seems much easier. Although certainly there may be some who adapt as you say, because FICA is taken out of each paycheck, most above the cap just think of it as a raise later in the year that disappears again on the first of the year. I bet most would not change their work time, they would likely just suck it up (I know I would). Of course if you REALLY want to solve problems, treat ALL income the same for tax purposes - stop giving special treatment to unearned income (stocks, dividends, interest).
> treat ALL income the same for tax purposes - stop giving special treatment to unearned income (stocks, dividends, interest).
That makes a great sound bite. It's also a terrible idea that fails spectacularly when it's tried. Keep in mind stock dividends are what's left after taxes. The company makes money and pays their taxes. Whatever is left after taxes goes to the owners of the business in the form of dividends. Taxing the same income twice, at more than 25% each time, is how you destroy domestic industry and send all the jobs to China. This isn't theory, it's been done and the results are instructive. While it's a great sound bite, but we don't want to be like Greece, so nobody seriously proposes such a thing.
> Same goes for CEOs that take millions and millions in stock bonuses to avoid income taxes.
Those should be taxed as earned income - and they ARE. See section 63 for details.
I don't think many people are proposing the elimination of the military. I do think that noting that we have one that is far and away more powerful than any other military implies that there might be some room to shrink it is not crazy. Having M1 tanks is better than not having them, all else held equal, but what's the opportunity cost of an M1 tank that never sees action?
We need a military, but we also need to bear in mind that the military soaks up an industrial nation's most valuable resources: working-aged able-bodied laboerers, heavy machinery facilities, engineers, petroleum, and raw construction materials. Putting some of those resources to work doing something more productive is a huge potential boost.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Regarding tax rates and total receipts: Why do you think it works this way in the US and not in any other developed country? People talk as though there's some magic phenomenon keeping total receipts as a percentage of GDP in check, but there isn't. That magic phenomenon is our cultural preference for tax receipts as a percentage of GDP.
As for corporate tax rates, I agree with you. We might as well zero them out for all the good they do us. Tax the money when it comes out to shareholders and tax capital gains. Don't bother trying to tax corporations. They're impossible to nail down, and all we do by cranking up the corporate income tax is cause corporations to do more crazy stuff to avoid taxes.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
But military pensions are defense spending. Moving them out of that category is a nonsensical accounting dodge.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
smaller than those little plastic soldiers in the bag we used to buy? oh boy, those would be hard to defend against. I've seen them in horror movies.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
They could keep all that other stuff and get rid of that one totally batshit expensive system. Well, a carrier or two also.
The funds will be piped elsewhere. Like the NSA, FEMA or other agencies that will be used to monitor and control US citizens.
Time ands materials, youngster.
And coding war stuff slowly is the closest to pacifism some of us can afford
Now, about my lawn - get off!
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God made machine language; all the rest is the work of Lucifer.
What DOD is talking about downsizing is conventional warfare and fighting assets as they appear in open Congressional budget line items. What they are upsizings at the same time:
Cut personnel, which you don't need right now if you don't plan to wage any constant wars for no real reason, other than create work for contractors, like we've been doing for over a decade, and continue to funnel money to contractors for neato projects inside the nation.
Like spying on the citizens and making sure there are enough detention camps and massive surveillance operations and restrictions of movement of the public so that if we try to exerciser any constitutional rights, we'll be constantly monitored by those x-military people that return and join federal and civilian law enforcement.
No, lifehacksaur111, this doesn't mean that the military-industrial complex is being dismantled or that the war machine is being downsized. It just means that the military understands that they aren't going to be able to get enough budget to pay for both the important stuff (pork-barrel military-industrial-complex spending) and having lots of soldiers around needing pay, housing, and medical care, so they're prioritizing how they'll spend the money.
And if later they need more soldiers for cannon-fodder in a large war, they'll see about cranking up a draft or something, but for now they don't want to lose the pork barrel.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks