As I showed in the previous post, the higher marginal rates of that era did not result in a higher percentage of the GDP becoming federal revenue.
If you’re gonna cut and reform the defense budget (which I support) you’ve got to cut and reform other problem areas as well. Namely the welfare state.
No more sacred cows. If you want to truly reduce the debt, everyone will need to sacrifice their pet projects.
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For sure, after pushing Russia in to the arms of China and on the brink of WW3 is the ideal time to cut the defense budget.
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For me I just want to cut the waste. There’s a metric ton of it. Like the LCS program.
Same goes for the welfare state. A ton of waste and no accountability. Just like the department of defense.
Can’t speak for Guilds, though. He might just want to cut it with a chainsaw rather than a scalpel. Which I don’t support.
Also I will add that if WW3 actually breaks out our defense budget for next year won’t matter too much. Everyone will be fighting with what they have on hand, nuclear weapons, and the aftermath won’t be much to write about it.
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With fewer and fewer people wanting anything to do with joining the US Military that 10-20% may just happen organically:
Gadgets are more expensive than soldiers
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Please name specifics.
I understand defense spending, can basically be a form corporate welfare…or a jobs program.
That being said, no,I do not what a chainsaw approach. It would need to be done in a true bipartisan effort. Cutting the waste would also be a key goal.
There’s a ton of waste surrounding who receives certain welfare benefits. People abusing disability. People abusing the food stamps system. You see them every day if you look.
I know a girl (with three kids) who brought in more in state benefits than I did working 60 hours a week. I was friends with her live in boyfriend. Granted I was horrifically underpaid, but it happened.
That kind of crap grinds my gears. I didn’t qualify for crap. Single dude with no children. I just busted my ass to make end’s meet.
But looking back, I don’t hate her. She was a nice person. She was just smarter than me.
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That is true, but can’t have as many gadgets if we don’t have the personnel to man them.
The Russians are facing this as they have seen so many injured or killed, men that will take long decades to replace.
Consider and marvel for a moment how their general staff apparently had forgotten about Ukrainian mud so that they got bogged down in it in the first place?
And that was not their only misstep.
Every bumble comes at human prices they cannot afford. It reminds me of something some used to claim a Mexican officer said after the Alamo when Santa Anna was to be crowing about his great victory. He was supposed to have said a few more victories like this and we will lose it all.
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A description of a Pyrrhic Victory.
King Pyrrhus of Epirus is believed to have said it originally. He defeated the Romans in an absolutely brutal battle where he lost the majority of his forces, thus ending his offensive campaign.
Also I’ll add something.
We are going to end up having to spend more on our defense for a short period of time before we can really cut it.
The US Air Force and US Navy have a ton of legacy air assets that have to be replaced. Which is what is going on right now. The F-15EX was ordered specifically to replace the F-15Cs that were, in most cases, over their lifetime air frame hours.
Unfortunately the reason the US had to order around 80 or so F-15EXs at roughly 90 million dollar each was because of the expected shortfall in air dominance fighters for homeland defense and expeditionary counter air.
We didn’t build enough F-22s to replace the F-15C; that was the original plan back in the 1990s. But production numbers were lowered from 380 in around 2003 down to just 187 back in the late Bush/early Obama era. And because of the War on Terror and it’s enormous cost, it was decided to invest a relatively small amount of money on keeping the Raptor modernized (relative to the fighter’s value; most other US fighters received far more enhancement programs during their lifetimes) and deferred airframe strengthening programs.
Also, the F-35s are going to need modernizing programs and airframe strengthening sooner rather than later so they can remain a credible fighter into the 2050s, which is when they will start to be retired.
Basically some bad decisions were made over the past twenty years in regards to our Cold War legacy assets and now the chickens have been coming home to roost. It’ll be more expensive before it can get cheaper. We are replacing the B-2 and B-1 with the B-21, the Navy has got to get at least the first two Columbia class submarines underway before the Ohios start retiring in 2032. Those are two huge elements in the US nuclear deterrence.
Yet another reason to curse Bush for Iraq.
It wasn’t Bush that left a fortune worth of equipment behind. Wasn’t Obama or Trump either…
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Shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
This issue goes far beyond any single president.
It’s been a sword of Damocles over the United States since the USSR collapsed and the Cold War ended.
What the War on Terror did was speed up the inevitable need to replace the final legacies of the Cold War. It would have happened in either situation.
Iraq or Afghanistan?
The equipment Ru is speaking of was left in Afghanistan.
Iraq. We shouldn’t have invaded Iraq.
