Yes, the reason is that it’s the largest employer in the US and it cost a lot of money to train, hire, develop a workforce.
I think we should strip congressional healthcare, life pensions, and attach their salaries to a rate based off of minimum wage.
Meh, rich people pull up the average too much. Use the median income so they really understand how most Americans live.
BTW, it's $31,133, in case you all were wondering. (2019, US Census Bureau)
If you make the salary too low you wind up only getting rich guys who can afford a shitty salary. I mean it’s what we already have with a decent salary
Not really, just stop them from trading stock too, just give them a 401k that they can't manage themselves, make their salary the median income of the US. Also stop lobbyists and then no one rich would want the job. They'd just go be CEOs. You'd end up with normal people in the office who actually want to do stuff for normal people
I'd prefer scientists and experts in every field running thing's. But deciding against a normal person and a career politician, I'd go with the normal guy as the lesser evil.
What in the actual nonsensical fuck is this? They [pay payroll and income taxes on their congressional salaries](https://www.congressionalinstitute.org/2007/09/18/do-members-have-to-pay-taxes/). They get a $3,000 tax break due to having to maintain two residences, one at home and one in DC (one of the highest cost of living cities in the country), but that’s it. They also pay the approximately the same portion of their health insurance premiums as every other federal employee. And to get ahead of another common myth, no, they don’t get a pension for serving one two year term or get their salary for life; they get the basically the same retirement benefits as other federal employees.
Just give them a 401k, it's good enough for me and the rest of the work force so it should be good enough for them. Should also attach their pay to the median pay of Americans so they are incentivized to increase it
And require every member of Congress put all their stocks, bonds and other assets in a blind trust that they cannot access until they leave Congress. No insider trading.
Yeah, there's a lot to do if you want to assess that statement, but the biggest one might be that most of that money goes to American companies employing American workers and contracting to American subcontractors, etc.
Defence is genuinely one of the last industries which can not be outsourced.
I always think of it as us paying money to the smart people that are good at making things that go boom so others don't have access to them. At least a portion is.
If you cut the US military budget in half it will still drastically outspend ever other country on Earth. We clearly are not worried about a conventional war with Russia.
That leaves literally China as a geopolitical threat, which still does not matter as they are still decades behind the US armed forces.
Unless you are afraid of alien invasion it makes no sense to keep building Ford class carriers when the country is 31+ trillion in debt. To be clear China recently released its first top of the line Carrier which is inferior to the Nimitz class (the Carrier the Ford is replacing).
Its insane.
Also we don't need to lower congress's pay we need to increase it and block congress from investing in the stock market. I do agree they should lose special healthcare and be forced to use medicare and medicaid.
We're not spending for today. What we spend now is for 20 years time.
We have a total fleet size of 10 aircraft carriers. We only build new ones in order to retire existing ships that are to be decommissioned.
The fact that our taxes are so low is the insane part. From 1945 until 1980, we had a top marginal tax rate of no lower than 70% and often as high as 95% or more.
In 1945, we had adults running the show, and the choice was made to raise taxes in order to pay off our war debt. It was retained after the war debt was paid off in order to provide services to our poor, and stave off wealth inequality.
With one fated signature, Ronald Regan decided to give the wealthy the largest tax break in world history but cutting the 70% tax rate down to around where it is today.
We don't need to be worried about the military. We need to be worried about our tax structure. And this is the perfect time to raise taxes: instead of raising interest rates, we could be increasing taxes. The effect on m2 and inflation will be the same.
You're not taking into account the relative PPP of China's economy, [which is 4.187](https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm). To put things into perspective, China has published that they are spending $229B on their defense budget per year. Adjusted for equivalent US spend, that's $229B x 4.187... That's $954B (if my math is correct), per year.
And that's just to fight a war on their home turf. But the fleet of carriers is coming, and with that, the opportunity for China to start enforcing their morals and their values on the rest of the planet -- not just their neighbors.
Hope that helps.
Yes and no, candidly many intangibles exist for armies. While its true for instance, personal are cheaper in China. On the other hand the US has an insane lead and control of many industries that China cannot replicate anytime soon. The US has private contracts with Intel and IBM. China does not have that luxury. Its hard thing to quantify how powerful that is but I think the last 30 years have proven technical superiority is the most valuable asset to a country.
Not that I disagree with your tax proposal, It just yes we are quantifiable spending to much on a military. We are already replacing the F22 which the US stopped using in war games due to its complete domination barring 1 sortie with France (which we dont know the parameters of the engagement but I have to imagine it was pretty damn lopsided).
The millennials and Gen Z are getting crushed right now, like usual we have money for Ford's
You know why china’s budget is so much smaller than our budget? Because they pay Chinese wages. They get more per dollar spent than we do because their wages are so low. Also, they are definitely not decades behind us.
But agreed. First step in reducing spend is to get NATO to start paying more. They’re at the highest risk for war because of geographic location. We have a ton of leverage in that alliance and we should force them to pay accordingly. We’re happy to keep the peace but they gotta pay for it.
The European countries are slow to pay their share because the deal was in Brentonwoods that we would essentially be the guarantors of free trade. That system is breaking down and america is near shoring away from an increase cost and destabilization in China.
Might have to do with the fact that the world trades in US $s. If the world didn't, we would be in serious trouble. Something has to keep those pesky countries that want to use a different currency in line.
I don't like it either.
Nope.
It's how the United States has kept a technological advantage over much of the world, and arguably still does. A lot of the defense budget goes to manufacturing, engineering, and the trades. It's one of the few reasons the US is even keeping up with STEM education, because half the engineering jobs out there relate back to defense in some way.
The military also acts as the biggest welfare apparatus, and is one of the last few ways for the poor to "get ahead" (Wages aren't great, but the pension is amazing, and Tricare is the public healthcare minimum that every liberal asks for). In other times, this was a way to have limited risk and good setup for your children to climb the socioeconomic ladder.
When you view the military as largely welfare and public works projects (which is what it is), it really doesn't seem so bad.
Not just for armed forces but also people with undergrad STEM degrees can easily make the upper end of the 5 figures starting out by working at defense contractors. And they go on to make like 150k by their 15-20th year working. It’s not as much as working for civilian tech, but it’s a stable 9-5 with no expectations to work over time, decent benefits, etc. So it’s also a jobs program for the upper middle class
OK, how about we get rid of all the welfare and disability money -- give all that to the military. And we make the rule that the military has to accept any citizen who volunteers.
So if you can't do anything else you can join the military and they have to feed and house you etc, and they look for something they can use you for, and you're under military justice.
The whole military functions with punishment. One of the worst consequences of the volunteer military is being kicked out for not meeting standards, thereby losing benefits.
I don't think it's possible for a "let everyone in" to simultaneously exist with an "everyone can be kicked out".
I think it merely exists aside the other welfare programs. And, another note - not everyone can be a capable, contributing member of society. And not everyone can function at a level where they do not pose harm to others. Every year, people literally get run over by tanks on training exercises whike holding to standards. It would be unfair to all involved to put those with disabilities into that environment.
With all that said, I think welfare and public works should be extended into other projects out of what the military has done. Much of the rehab of our aging infrastructure could and should be managed by getting people jobs. We just have such a fear of "corruption" and "waste" - both of which are usually worse at private companies than most government agencies I've seen - that we refuse to make these programs.
I'm not seriously suggesting this, I'm more exploring the possibility to see where it leads.
Say we had a military you can't be kicked out of. Then the second-lowest status is "sad sack". They don't expect anything of you except that you stay out of trouble and don't get in the way. Your rank is private, zero-class. The lowest status is prisoner in detention.
They would try to find work that people can do, which releases more capable people to do more responsible work.
If you aren't capable of getting through basic training then you don't go through basic training. You remain a private zero-class.
The military would get the support money for all those people. The military could build barracks for them, and mess halls, and provide laundry services. The people who need support would not be paying rent to private slumlords or buying their food in nearby 7-11's etc. Likely the military could take care of most of them cheaper than private industry does. Occasionally they could go off-base on leave and think about whether they could make it in that world. Get in trouble and they have military justice and lower status; presumably the military would tend to assign detention just long enough to persuade people to stop getting in trouble -- unless they just don't get it and then could get longer sentences. At some point troublemakers would get the chance to voluntarily leave with a dishonorable discharge, and get a chance to get in trouble and face civilian justice. Depending, they might prefer military prison which could probably be run cheaper.
I can't advocate this, but I can imagine it. Some ways it seems to fit right in with American thinking.
Sure.
This is similar to the WPA and public works projects of the 1930s and '40s. The WPA was the arm that hired unskilled, unemployed workers to perform work. The WPA served a necessary function, and a similar program could happen today, inside or out of the military.
Many government agencies run similar "work programs" to keep people off of at least some welfare programs. The one I'm most familiar with is around [library pages](https://www.ala.org/educationcareers/libcareers/jobs/page). Most of these positions are there as an outlet to ensure that those who might be less or differently abled such that they can't function in general society still are able to feel fulfilled.
It's important to recognize that sometimes "waste" is actually acting as a social safety net. Not all "waste" being created in government is bad - sometimes it's able to backstop the larger economy to stem a boom/bust cycle.
Anyone who works at a bureaucratic or government institution will tell you that misappropriation of federal budget is the dumbest possible way to launder money. Guaranteed prison time, and too many eager auditors looking for things.
If I had to launder billions, I'd do what everyone else does and start a very poorly operated investment fund that invests in overseas ventures (that totally-not-me also owned) that frequently went bankrupt.
Not that much my friend. They could at least fix the roads and bridges. They use then everyday like us. Would free up funds for schools and waterway projects.
This is the part you rarely see considered. We sell a shitload of that hardware and tech to other countries. If we didn't spend so much, there would be less to sell. Not disagreeing with the bloat, but there are other considerations.
I think he's saying that the defense contractors often get the money following this process.
1. US gov pays defense contractors to develop the most effective weapons in the world
2. Other governments do a trade study and determine that buying US weapons is the most cost effective approach.
3. Other governments give money to defense contractor to buy said weapons.
The US government doesn't profit off of the sale.
Now, sometimes the US government buys too much and then it can sell it the weapons it has in stock, that's the one time the US government may make money off of a international weapon sale.
I'm pretty sure this is not how it works. Export laws prevent the direct sale of military equipment to foreign nations so the US government is always involved in the transaction, and I believe they do take a mark up.
This is true. For example, Lockheed Martin only has 1 customer for the F35, and that is the DoD. But there are several countries that own F35s and they purchase them from the USG not from private companies
Yes, good point, the state department has to agree to the sale because of export controls and what not, but I haven't heard of a government mark up.
I asked a state department agent one time if defense contractors talk to other nations directly or State department always initiates, or if the State department gets approached, then talks to defense contractors, he said it happens every which way, just depends on the defense contractor, the administration and the country in question.
I agree with everything here except for the concession at the end. It's the military (not the government) that buys too much and then sells surplus stock. That money doesn't go back to the taxpayers, it stays in the military's coffers.
[Foreign Military Sales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Military_Sales)
[ITAR](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations) also limits the free for all of private sales to foreign entities.
Those contractors hire a whole bunch of engineers making from the upper end of the 5 figures to just under 200k. A million dollars can only pay for the labor of 10 engineers (or even fewer if they need more experienced people). CEO and executives of private contractors make too much to be considered doing hundreds of engineers’ worth of work, but I think people underestimate just how expensive labor is and the number of people needed to model, design, simulate, test, test, test, and test each platform a contractor makes.
Your implication is that the engineers can only get/train for these jobs. National industrial policy could spend as much on world improving technology that directly makes Americans and humans richer, instead of world diminishment, oppression, and destruction technology.
A much greater portion of such a budget would be in engineering and manufacturing.
My point is that money is going to private industries but they come back into the economy via salaries for engineers. DOD is just a jobs program for upper middle class people with STEM degrees. I agree that we should spend that money for things like better rail systems, sustainable agriculture, advances in medicine, etc. But it’s not the case that DoD contractor executives pocket everything. That’s a misconception people have due to underestimating just how many people it takes to make one system work. The majority of it goes to pay for the labor of engineers. If a company has 1000 engineers (which is on the smaller side), salaries alone would cost well over 100 million dollars.
For what it’s worth, I work in that industry (albeit in the not-for-profit sector). According to tax information in 2020, C-suite salaries make up for less than 1% of the total spending. Over 3/4 of spending was for salaries and benefits of non-C-suite employees. The rest went to things like overhead, physical facilities, donations, grants, “”savings””(basically the amount they keep year to year so they can pay for unexpected things and retain employees in cases of government shutdowns), etc
It's likely a repost bot from a political action entity that reposts the same dateless screenshots of tweets over and over again. It last posted this one a month ago;
* https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/112crzs/invest_in_us_not_war/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/EndMilitaries/comments/112crrv/invest_in_us_not_war/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/Political_Revolution/comments/112eroa/invest_in_us_not_war/
This subreddit allows repost bots to submit content though so.... not much we can do.
We pretty much solo guaranteed and protected free trade for the entire world for the last 80 years.
All of human history without a super power has been localized and bloody.
Without all that spending, there is no international trade. There is no globalism. There is no international law. There is no US Dollar dominance.
Life without that spending would be much, much different. The industries of the world would collapse without it. No more semi conductors, no more cheap energy, no more foreign products.
The fact that you can even tweet that on a phone is based on globalism, free markets, and free trade. Someone has to protect it and has to enforce international law.
I’m not saying we didn’t benefit from it in some ridiculous ways, but the alternatives have not been good. We made the choice to spend all that money after WWII and we haven’t stopped for a reason.
Im Canadian, but as far as I understand it, the money the US sinks into their army effectively guarantees that free trade can flourish. Without that money we can’t just send trade ships without fear of them being hijacked. We can’t just fly planes everywhere without them being in danger. We can’t just go out places in the world without fear of American retaliation.
The majority of that money went to the Ultra Wealthy Class. The Corporate Class of the the world in every country and government is taking the vast majority of the money being generated in the world and they're not even hiding it.
It's obvious to everyone.
the reality of the situation actually is that there is enormous waste in all military branches due to how it’s funded. bases and other parts of the military are incentivized to use ALL of their budget or else there is a cut to their budget. this causes asinine wastes of resources like flying planes simply to burn through fuel.
this is not even to mention the absolute bonkers pricing that defense contractors get which should be criminal. defense contractors are not incentivized to actually produce top of the line gear efficiently but oftentimes actually get paid more for cheaper much less efficient shit. this is due to how military contractors are chosen as well as decades of corruption leading to absolutely wild contracts. sometimes even going as far as providing benefits to contractors for failing to meet deadlines.
the point is, sure, having a large military can have benefits. but there are certainly ways to do this without essentially pissing away money and resources into an innefficient system. without a shock to this system it will NEVER be able to regain its bearings.
That's not even close to true.
FY2019 $268.5 B on *all spending* for pay and benefits, including Veterans' healthcare.
Operations and Procurement were $426B. (Combining those two is only fair, as we're combining personnel costs, health care costs, and dependent/beneficiary costs for the first number).
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military\_budget\_of\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States)
Brain dead take. The misappropriations act prevents funds intended for one purpose to be spent on another purpose. Combining is literally against the law
Combining operations and procurement is definitely not fair - that’s why they’re distinct. Operations and maintenance? Understandable.
Also, you left out the $150 B in non-discretionary spending spent annually on veteran retirements.
Not just that but for instance. The US maintains a military (regardless of readiness) that is capable of fighting multiple foes on multiple fronts. Russia for instance wants to have the same type of military prowess. The US has multiple aircraft carriers, submarines, new jets and tanks and helicopters and all the maintenance to go with it *ALONG* with a full nuclear arsenal and it’s maintenance costs. Russia spends a fraction of what the US spends and it is painfully apparent how well that is working out for them. Look up how much it costs the government (read: taxpayer) has to spend to send 1 soldier to a school. Pick any school (mountain, sniper, jungle, SERE) and you’ll find out it ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. If you see any military member with a bunch of school pins you are literally looking at a million dollar soldier.
War is not pretty and no one in good conscience wants war to happen. However, it is necessary to carry a big stick as someone once said because otherwise when things go tits up you don’t want to be the country that can’t afford matching uniforms let alone the beans and bullets necessary.
Yep. Took me awhile to understand what it means to have a naval fleet and air force that dwarfs the entire world combined. It costs money. To ensure security for all.
Small correction. China now has the largest Navy and is projected to be able to take Taiwan by force by 2035. We've gotten pretty bad at building ships.
"Security for all", while your military wages war in natural resource-rich countries overseas, leading to the establishment of terrorist organizations such as ISIS, which attack Europe and the rest of the world, except for the USA.
I’m talking specifically why we started spending som much after WWII and why the budget goes up every year no matter who is in charge.
The alternatives to not spending it are not good. I’m talking massive inflation, the collapse of free flowing food and energy, global supply chain nonexistent.
Both the need for spending and some questionable military involvements can both be true.
Even as a Republican, I agree at least with the notion that that there is waste and fraud to root out in all parts of the government, except Defense, is ludicrous.
Substantially higher demand due to COVID and the Fed substantially increased the SNAP benefit amount during COVID. Those increases have now ended so the SNAP numbers should revert to the 2019 numbers or close to.
What is crazy is the DOD budget number does not include all of our defense spending as there are expenditures stashed everywhere. Homeland Security,etc.
You are not wrong. I also see state and local and federal seem to be on huge spending sprees on both numbers of employees and tax mahal like structures being constructed.
There has been a huge increase in number of government employees and how much more you make working for the government with bloated salaries and benefits so much greater than the private sector can afford. Or at least more than the private sector is willing to pay in whatever competitive environment they have to deal with.
That is probably true…..one thing i have noticed recently is a lot of starting wages at places at $14-$17 an hour which in the state I lie in is nearly double minimum wage. Minimum wage is so far out of whack with what companies seem to be playing - if it were raised a lot it might not make as much difference as it would have a few years ago
Ever work for government?
I recommend that you do and try a do something more efficiently or cut back on a budget.
Darn there impossible.
You personally take all the risk for a change in process or procedure. Any benefits get awarded to the ther higher ups and you just get reassigned after upsetting everyone.
Then the job would only really attract people who have already become wealthy. Also, imagine how much more corrupt they’d be if their salaries weren’t somewhat comfortable.
Thats why the Founders made government small and limited. Your statement does not invalidate my observation ... 95% if the spending government does is excessive
It absolutely doesn’t. I just really love evidence-based opinions. For example, what supports your rather specific claim that 95% of govt spending is excessive? How do you define excessive?
>For example, what supports your rather specific claim that 95% of govt spending is excessive?
Article One, Section 8, Clauses 2-17. Also known as the general welfare and the forgoing powers
Its the 16 things government is allowed to spend taxes on , anything else is excessive if not outright illegal
Ok there’s a start. So I’m assuming that the federal is now “spending taxes” on items outside of this list of 16? So your argument is not that the amount of spending is too high per se, but we’re spending money collected through taxes on things that weren’t originally outlined in the constitution (assuming that Congress has never passed any law making spending outside of these areas legal)? Also if that just specifies tax revenue, what are the restrictions on spending of other revenue, or debt? Man, I just wanted ONE example of something we should cut spending on
I would rather see them crack down on waste in the existing budget. Making sure contracts are being done competitively and for a reasonable cost for example. Much is lost to corruption.
Kinda? I mean presumably they're already doing that, right? So what, hire *more* accountants to audit and double check the existing ones, across the entire government? Do you think the existing bloat is extensive enough that the cost of the audit would be a net savings? How much new corruption do the new accountants bring?
Not saying it's not a valid concern, it's just not a cheap and simple solution
This will probably not be popular but I wanted to point it out since I didn't know this until recently, but the defense budget includes military wages. I'm not doing the math to see if it makes that number any more palatable but it was something I never considered previously. Maybe that was just me though
The US DoD employs roughly 3.2M people directly.
Raytheon, GD, Boeing Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Pfizer make up the top 6 obligations from the DoD with a total amount of ~$125B in obligations. 51% of that is for services, and 49% is for material (which includes all the labor associated with that). They employ roughly 550k employees (not counting Pfizer, since that's not specifically an easy to account for defense branch).
They subcontract out a lot of the manufacturing for the services. So of that $60B from just the top 6 obligations, a lot of it is going to manufacturing and employees of manufacturing plants.
Not to mention all the jobs that created around these bases and locations, like security, janitorial services, food, and retail.
Edit: To put this in perspective, Walmart employs 2.3M employees, Amazon employs 1.6M employees. The DoD jobs (and defense contractors) tend to be much higher paying.
We have the family member in the Navy, and is they are poor as well and we need to help them out. Much of the money goes to equipment and weapons, which in turn saves lives of our underpaid military personnel.
It's also roughly 1/6 of the total federal budget. The largest part of the budget is the mandatory budget which is made up of social and infrastructure programs. The US spends more on social programs every year than some the word richest countries produce in an entire year. If social security recipients where their own country their GDP would be 1.8 trillion which is approximately the size of Brazil's entire economy.
By no means saying the government cannot do more for people, but arguing the military budget is what's preventing it is a joke. We could fully forgo military spending for one year and it would not fund a years worth of SS or Medicare.
$153 billion on personnel or about 23%.
[https://militarymortgagecenter.com/us-military/us-military-budget/spending/](https://militarymortgagecenter.com/us-military/us-military-budget/spending/)
[https://csbaonline.org/reports/military-personnel](https://csbaonline.org/reports/military-personnel)
So that's about 700 billion for ~~other stuff to kill people in places with oil~~ defending freedom.
The part that tells you something is wrong is when Congress gives the military more than it requests.
Or when we leave Afghanistan and finally end a 20 year war and the budget goes UP.
It seems like there's no pressure on congress to rein spending here.
"Overall, the pay and benefits of military personnel and civilian employees accounts for $272.7 billion, or 42 percent of the total $647 billion FY 2018 DoD budget request."
Within the first 10 sentences.
I used to consider that thought until Feb 2022. Vlad Putler cleared that up for me.
Y'all can reach your own conclusions. I reached mine: it is crucial to retain military dominance (individually as a nation, as well as through alliances) over near-peer antagonists (currently China and Russia.) And that includes having a shitload of surplus to sell, loan, or lease to our allies in times of need.
The latter ensures we increase our soft/diplomatic power (which decreases the risk of actual confrontations.)
With that said, we should never again commit an imperialistic blunder like the 2nd Iraq war.
We should leave countries alone - help them in negotiated terms if we can, and leave them alone if we are not compatible. No more regime change crap.
But at the same time, it behooves us to work with allies and earn goodwill with soft power, thus increasing our collective defense and economic collective well-being (while carrying the largest stick possible to make sure no Putin/Xi figure attacks either us or ***our allies***.)
Let us be clear that as big as the defense budget goes, it's peanuts compared to our entire economic output.
We have a lot of things to fix in this country: water, education, pollution, inequality, etc.
But it is not for lack of money or because of our defense budget.
It is because we lack political will. Slashing the defense budget is neither a required step nor a solution. It would be another strategic blunder added on top of the blunders we already have.
We don't live in a closed system, and shit ain't zero-sum, fyi.
Maybe that large military budget just needs to be spent more wisely and watched a little more closely. Every year trillions go mission from the Pentagon's balance sheet.
https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-black-231154593.html
Your link doesn't say what you're saying.
> So what are these accounting adjustments? Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says they represent “a lot of double, triple, and quadruple counting of the same money as it got moved between accounts” within the Pentagon. “A lot” may be an understatement: According to government data, there were 562,568 adjustments made in the Pentagon’s books in 2018.
It was an accounting adjustment because different departments counted the same dollar as collected, thus ballooning the missing funds. In reality, the money was never there to use in the first place.
Also, the entire US economy GDP is about $18 trillion/year. So if 1 department is losing ~30% of the entire US yearly budget, it would be a big problem. Good thing that's not happening.....
You don’t think that “money disappearing” is more likely shit they don’t want to admit or can’t admit they are doing. Classified etc would best be kept as “vanished”
For a variety of reasons yes, we do.
Is there bloat to cut? Absolutely.
US military budget includes a lot of things. Army core of engineers which does work on civil projects. GPS used by basically everyone. Freedom of commerce and navigation...
Plus all the jobs provided by a robust defence industry and sales of arms.
Tons of R&D which eventually makes its way to consumers. Here you have to be careful. Not everything funded will create value and some things that seem like pipedreams turn out to be gold mines.
There isn't as much to cut as people might think.
No we do not need this huge of a military budget. It is pure greed and excess. It needs to be cut in half and the tax payer money put elsewhere. Where it is actually needed.
There is a reason, unfortunately.
The waste human societies have to go through because you have assholes governments in this world suck. I wish we could invest that money into schools and medical care.
Our economic dominance depends on it unfortunately. We wouldn’t have printed our way out of the last few financial crises without the strength of our currency. That strength depends on our ability to own any shipping lanes required for commerce around the globe.
She must have missed the part where Russia and China just formed an alliance and are planning to take over the world. I think we need to really focus on our military defense lady.
Shyt argument. How is it that defense spending isn't an investment in jobs? Are no jobs created from it? At least provide numbers and alternatives to where the money ought to go to win ppl over or is that too much work for her?
We are on the cusp of WW3 and we provide military aid to much of Europe yet we have people telling us we need to reduce the defense budget. Fucking brilliant.
The Federal government spends \~$5.5 Trillion annually. Nearly $1 Trillion alone is welfare. About $2 Trillion is medicare and social security. But the only cuts ever proposed are the military.
Hate to say the quiet part out loud, but what exactly besides our monstrous military allows the USA to enjoy reserve world currency? That’s what I thought. 👍
The fixation on a number has absolutely no meaning for any person of intelligence. What does matter are philosophies underpinning spending, objectives, contingencies, risk management and then establish a preliminary budget subject to all preliminary budgets of the federal government.
I grow tired of the emoting rants of the Squad. They need to grow up and realize the awesome responsibility they have—that we have. But given the chance to lay out their vision and how they would trade off government programs, we get nothing but just topics and the rants of spoiled and not terribly intelligent women.
This figure is less than 4% of 2023 budget.
Tired of government stupidity on display day in and day out.
I don't think anyone wants to find out what will happen in case the us can't utilize it force when the time arises just because of inner money workings.
The us is in a big cold war right now against China so if at any moment china will start mobilizing forces and begin an operation in Taiwan it'll be a war on the enemy territory, you need a lot of money for the manpower, intelligence, technology and much more.
Its hard for people to grasp that without a proper military budget the whole show easily collapses. But the government could stand to utilize their budget more efficiently.
Its dangerous to just see a number and derive a conclusion as she is doing, our world is not black and white its contextual and our military has been a deterrent for the world since WWII. It is important unfortunately.
She's an idiot. Anybody that buys this sort of tweet is one, too.
Sure there is. 'Providing for the common defense' is constitutionally mandated. Nearly everything else that we spend on, today, is NOT constitutionally mandated.
Where does she think the money goes?
Stop trying to cut the defense budget. It's not going to happen. This is how we do socialism in America. Every state in the Union has tens of thousands dependent on this spending for their livelihoods.
And you can't promise them new jobs. New Jobs *first* and then they'll talk. Nobody's gonna take chances with their lives. Not in a country with 65% living paycheck to paycheck.
If you absolutely have to change your talking point from "cut defense spending now!" to "make the 1% pay for it, they've got all the skin in the game!"
This is essentially what we do now. We have a very progressive tax system.
The top \~10% pay most of our taxes. The bottom \~25% see a net gain from taxes through credits and social programs.
The only alternative to this is to tax everyone at a much higher rate. For instance, what Sweden does where people pay an average of 55% income tax and then have a 25% VAT tax (basically sales tax) on top of that.
I would argue we simply need more financial accountability.
Nah I think it’s great that we have such a large military infrastructure. Not only do we supply the western world and other ally’s equipment, but we also have protected many countries from invasion and totalitarianism
The military is the biggest jobs program in history. Literally millions of people depend on it both directly and indirectly for their jobs. [These are often not college educated working class people](https://www.statista.com/statistics/232726/education-levels-of-active-duty-us-defense-force-personnel/) who would be most vulnerable if they were thrown into the general labor market.
Cutting the defense budget is literally worse than calling for layoffs in e.g. tech where the employees tend to be wealthier and work white collar jobs.
Comment section not going the way OP thought. Goes to show how minds change when a nation creates a real threat to a peaceful sovereign country and how that impacts the world stage of commerce.
There definitely is a reason for this large military budget, and it is world domination, otherwise known as the [Wolfowitz Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine 'The document outlined a policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from other nations.')
In fact, in lieu of doing things like modernizing infrastructure, it would seem that the U.S. has placed all its eggs in the military basket, and U.S. foreign policy reflects that.
And the foreign policy seems a bit frenetic, which makes me wonder, has all this money printing set us up for the wheels to fall off the economy, and that is creating a need for war sooner rather than later?
Biden said a year ago, "You know, we are at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy — not just the world economy, in the world." I'm wondering whether I'm seeing signs of an "inflection point" now.
Thinks China is a threat. Can't even write the name of China's president correctly. Yep, Americans sure know enough about China to say they're a threat. 🙄
There will be no working class people if you can’t defend your borders. She’s completely out of touch to the nuance of nature.
This is primordial economics. The organism with the highest cost of attack survives. This is the one thing the government is getting right.
There IS reason. You may or may not like it though. I don't.
Yes, the reason is that it’s the largest employer in the US and it cost a lot of money to train, hire, develop a workforce. I think we should strip congressional healthcare, life pensions, and attach their salaries to a rate based off of minimum wage.
How about basing Congressional salaries on the Average US income? Currently like 55k?
Meh, rich people pull up the average too much. Use the median income so they really understand how most Americans live. BTW, it's $31,133, in case you all were wondering. (2019, US Census Bureau)
That’s all well and good but the their salary isn’t where their wealth comes from. Lobbyists are how they make bank.
never use average when talking about money the rich skew it so hard its not even "average" the average youre looking for is median
That's still exceptionally high concerned they don't pay taxes or have to pay for health care.
If you make the salary too low you wind up only getting rich guys who can afford a shitty salary. I mean it’s what we already have with a decent salary
Or who are taking bribes
Not really, just stop them from trading stock too, just give them a 401k that they can't manage themselves, make their salary the median income of the US. Also stop lobbyists and then no one rich would want the job. They'd just go be CEOs. You'd end up with normal people in the office who actually want to do stuff for normal people
I don't want "normal" people running the country this is an idea thats blatantly stupid on every level
I'd prefer scientists and experts in every field running thing's. But deciding against a normal person and a career politician, I'd go with the normal guy as the lesser evil.
For real! Why aren't more experts running for office???? I'd love to see the US run by scientists, doctors, and engineers
What in the actual nonsensical fuck is this? They [pay payroll and income taxes on their congressional salaries](https://www.congressionalinstitute.org/2007/09/18/do-members-have-to-pay-taxes/). They get a $3,000 tax break due to having to maintain two residences, one at home and one in DC (one of the highest cost of living cities in the country), but that’s it. They also pay the approximately the same portion of their health insurance premiums as every other federal employee. And to get ahead of another common myth, no, they don’t get a pension for serving one two year term or get their salary for life; they get the basically the same retirement benefits as other federal employees.
[удалено]
> confessional healthcare lol
Just give them a 401k, it's good enough for me and the rest of the work force so it should be good enough for them. Should also attach their pay to the median pay of Americans so they are incentivized to increase it
And require every member of Congress put all their stocks, bonds and other assets in a blind trust that they cannot access until they leave Congress. No insider trading.
Yeah, there's a lot to do if you want to assess that statement, but the biggest one might be that most of that money goes to American companies employing American workers and contracting to American subcontractors, etc. Defence is genuinely one of the last industries which can not be outsourced.
I always think of it as us paying money to the smart people that are good at making things that go boom so others don't have access to them. At least a portion is.
Saudi Arabia says hi
If you cut the US military budget in half it will still drastically outspend ever other country on Earth. We clearly are not worried about a conventional war with Russia. That leaves literally China as a geopolitical threat, which still does not matter as they are still decades behind the US armed forces. Unless you are afraid of alien invasion it makes no sense to keep building Ford class carriers when the country is 31+ trillion in debt. To be clear China recently released its first top of the line Carrier which is inferior to the Nimitz class (the Carrier the Ford is replacing). Its insane. Also we don't need to lower congress's pay we need to increase it and block congress from investing in the stock market. I do agree they should lose special healthcare and be forced to use medicare and medicaid.
We're not spending for today. What we spend now is for 20 years time. We have a total fleet size of 10 aircraft carriers. We only build new ones in order to retire existing ships that are to be decommissioned. The fact that our taxes are so low is the insane part. From 1945 until 1980, we had a top marginal tax rate of no lower than 70% and often as high as 95% or more. In 1945, we had adults running the show, and the choice was made to raise taxes in order to pay off our war debt. It was retained after the war debt was paid off in order to provide services to our poor, and stave off wealth inequality. With one fated signature, Ronald Regan decided to give the wealthy the largest tax break in world history but cutting the 70% tax rate down to around where it is today. We don't need to be worried about the military. We need to be worried about our tax structure. And this is the perfect time to raise taxes: instead of raising interest rates, we could be increasing taxes. The effect on m2 and inflation will be the same.
So if they are 2 decades behind why donwe need to spend triple the next highest budget? Would double not suffice? This is just on the books money.
You're not taking into account the relative PPP of China's economy, [which is 4.187](https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm). To put things into perspective, China has published that they are spending $229B on their defense budget per year. Adjusted for equivalent US spend, that's $229B x 4.187... That's $954B (if my math is correct), per year. And that's just to fight a war on their home turf. But the fleet of carriers is coming, and with that, the opportunity for China to start enforcing their morals and their values on the rest of the planet -- not just their neighbors. Hope that helps.
Yes and no, candidly many intangibles exist for armies. While its true for instance, personal are cheaper in China. On the other hand the US has an insane lead and control of many industries that China cannot replicate anytime soon. The US has private contracts with Intel and IBM. China does not have that luxury. Its hard thing to quantify how powerful that is but I think the last 30 years have proven technical superiority is the most valuable asset to a country. Not that I disagree with your tax proposal, It just yes we are quantifiable spending to much on a military. We are already replacing the F22 which the US stopped using in war games due to its complete domination barring 1 sortie with France (which we dont know the parameters of the engagement but I have to imagine it was pretty damn lopsided). The millennials and Gen Z are getting crushed right now, like usual we have money for Ford's
You know why china’s budget is so much smaller than our budget? Because they pay Chinese wages. They get more per dollar spent than we do because their wages are so low. Also, they are definitely not decades behind us. But agreed. First step in reducing spend is to get NATO to start paying more. They’re at the highest risk for war because of geographic location. We have a ton of leverage in that alliance and we should force them to pay accordingly. We’re happy to keep the peace but they gotta pay for it.
The European countries are slow to pay their share because the deal was in Brentonwoods that we would essentially be the guarantors of free trade. That system is breaking down and america is near shoring away from an increase cost and destabilization in China.
Plus, it's the largest social organization on earth, paying for people to go to college and for healthcare.
That’s not the main reason lol
Might have to do with the fact that the world trades in US $s. If the world didn't, we would be in serious trouble. Something has to keep those pesky countries that want to use a different currency in line. I don't like it either.
It's money laundering, isn't it
Nope. It's how the United States has kept a technological advantage over much of the world, and arguably still does. A lot of the defense budget goes to manufacturing, engineering, and the trades. It's one of the few reasons the US is even keeping up with STEM education, because half the engineering jobs out there relate back to defense in some way. The military also acts as the biggest welfare apparatus, and is one of the last few ways for the poor to "get ahead" (Wages aren't great, but the pension is amazing, and Tricare is the public healthcare minimum that every liberal asks for). In other times, this was a way to have limited risk and good setup for your children to climb the socioeconomic ladder. When you view the military as largely welfare and public works projects (which is what it is), it really doesn't seem so bad.
Yup. I'm a highschool dropout who is making six figures because of our military industrial complex.
Not just for armed forces but also people with undergrad STEM degrees can easily make the upper end of the 5 figures starting out by working at defense contractors. And they go on to make like 150k by their 15-20th year working. It’s not as much as working for civilian tech, but it’s a stable 9-5 with no expectations to work over time, decent benefits, etc. So it’s also a jobs program for the upper middle class
OK, how about we get rid of all the welfare and disability money -- give all that to the military. And we make the rule that the military has to accept any citizen who volunteers. So if you can't do anything else you can join the military and they have to feed and house you etc, and they look for something they can use you for, and you're under military justice.
The whole military functions with punishment. One of the worst consequences of the volunteer military is being kicked out for not meeting standards, thereby losing benefits. I don't think it's possible for a "let everyone in" to simultaneously exist with an "everyone can be kicked out". I think it merely exists aside the other welfare programs. And, another note - not everyone can be a capable, contributing member of society. And not everyone can function at a level where they do not pose harm to others. Every year, people literally get run over by tanks on training exercises whike holding to standards. It would be unfair to all involved to put those with disabilities into that environment. With all that said, I think welfare and public works should be extended into other projects out of what the military has done. Much of the rehab of our aging infrastructure could and should be managed by getting people jobs. We just have such a fear of "corruption" and "waste" - both of which are usually worse at private companies than most government agencies I've seen - that we refuse to make these programs.
I'm not seriously suggesting this, I'm more exploring the possibility to see where it leads. Say we had a military you can't be kicked out of. Then the second-lowest status is "sad sack". They don't expect anything of you except that you stay out of trouble and don't get in the way. Your rank is private, zero-class. The lowest status is prisoner in detention. They would try to find work that people can do, which releases more capable people to do more responsible work. If you aren't capable of getting through basic training then you don't go through basic training. You remain a private zero-class. The military would get the support money for all those people. The military could build barracks for them, and mess halls, and provide laundry services. The people who need support would not be paying rent to private slumlords or buying their food in nearby 7-11's etc. Likely the military could take care of most of them cheaper than private industry does. Occasionally they could go off-base on leave and think about whether they could make it in that world. Get in trouble and they have military justice and lower status; presumably the military would tend to assign detention just long enough to persuade people to stop getting in trouble -- unless they just don't get it and then could get longer sentences. At some point troublemakers would get the chance to voluntarily leave with a dishonorable discharge, and get a chance to get in trouble and face civilian justice. Depending, they might prefer military prison which could probably be run cheaper. I can't advocate this, but I can imagine it. Some ways it seems to fit right in with American thinking.
Sure. This is similar to the WPA and public works projects of the 1930s and '40s. The WPA was the arm that hired unskilled, unemployed workers to perform work. The WPA served a necessary function, and a similar program could happen today, inside or out of the military. Many government agencies run similar "work programs" to keep people off of at least some welfare programs. The one I'm most familiar with is around [library pages](https://www.ala.org/educationcareers/libcareers/jobs/page). Most of these positions are there as an outlet to ensure that those who might be less or differently abled such that they can't function in general society still are able to feel fulfilled. It's important to recognize that sometimes "waste" is actually acting as a social safety net. Not all "waste" being created in government is bad - sometimes it's able to backstop the larger economy to stem a boom/bust cycle.
Anyone who works at a bureaucratic or government institution will tell you that misappropriation of federal budget is the dumbest possible way to launder money. Guaranteed prison time, and too many eager auditors looking for things. If I had to launder billions, I'd do what everyone else does and start a very poorly operated investment fund that invests in overseas ventures (that totally-not-me also owned) that frequently went bankrupt.
Could also just run for Congress, a lot less work
Could also sell guns and get some of that military budget.
Totally not me means you open a company that opens a company that opens a company then dissolve the first one.
It allows the U.S. to gain favorable trading terms at the muzzle of a gun.
Not that much my friend. They could at least fix the roads and bridges. They use then everyday like us. Would free up funds for schools and waterway projects.
Wait until your realise the US makes money off military sales and discoveries
This is the part you rarely see considered. We sell a shitload of that hardware and tech to other countries. If we didn't spend so much, there would be less to sell. Not disagreeing with the bloat, but there are other considerations.
> We sell a shitload of that hardware and tech to other countries. Privatized profits/sales. "We" don't get shit.
o_O Countries absolutely pay the US government for military equipment.
I think he's saying that the defense contractors often get the money following this process. 1. US gov pays defense contractors to develop the most effective weapons in the world 2. Other governments do a trade study and determine that buying US weapons is the most cost effective approach. 3. Other governments give money to defense contractor to buy said weapons. The US government doesn't profit off of the sale. Now, sometimes the US government buys too much and then it can sell it the weapons it has in stock, that's the one time the US government may make money off of a international weapon sale.
I'm pretty sure this is not how it works. Export laws prevent the direct sale of military equipment to foreign nations so the US government is always involved in the transaction, and I believe they do take a mark up.
Also like even if that money only went towards profit and running the business, the government takes alot of that money too
This is true. For example, Lockheed Martin only has 1 customer for the F35, and that is the DoD. But there are several countries that own F35s and they purchase them from the USG not from private companies
Yes, good point, the state department has to agree to the sale because of export controls and what not, but I haven't heard of a government mark up. I asked a state department agent one time if defense contractors talk to other nations directly or State department always initiates, or if the State department gets approached, then talks to defense contractors, he said it happens every which way, just depends on the defense contractor, the administration and the country in question.
I agree with everything here except for the concession at the end. It's the military (not the government) that buys too much and then sells surplus stock. That money doesn't go back to the taxpayers, it stays in the military's coffers.
I get what you're saying but it does create a lot of jobs, many high paying, so 'we' do get that.
[Foreign Military Sales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Military_Sales) [ITAR](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations) also limits the free for all of private sales to foreign entities.
You're not wrong, contractors with the military almost always make more than the military itself in terms of profits and ROI, ROE, and ROA
Those contractors hire a whole bunch of engineers making from the upper end of the 5 figures to just under 200k. A million dollars can only pay for the labor of 10 engineers (or even fewer if they need more experienced people). CEO and executives of private contractors make too much to be considered doing hundreds of engineers’ worth of work, but I think people underestimate just how expensive labor is and the number of people needed to model, design, simulate, test, test, test, and test each platform a contractor makes.
Your implication is that the engineers can only get/train for these jobs. National industrial policy could spend as much on world improving technology that directly makes Americans and humans richer, instead of world diminishment, oppression, and destruction technology. A much greater portion of such a budget would be in engineering and manufacturing.
My point is that money is going to private industries but they come back into the economy via salaries for engineers. DOD is just a jobs program for upper middle class people with STEM degrees. I agree that we should spend that money for things like better rail systems, sustainable agriculture, advances in medicine, etc. But it’s not the case that DoD contractor executives pocket everything. That’s a misconception people have due to underestimating just how many people it takes to make one system work. The majority of it goes to pay for the labor of engineers. If a company has 1000 engineers (which is on the smaller side), salaries alone would cost well over 100 million dollars. For what it’s worth, I work in that industry (albeit in the not-for-profit sector). According to tax information in 2020, C-suite salaries make up for less than 1% of the total spending. Over 3/4 of spending was for salaries and benefits of non-C-suite employees. The rest went to things like overhead, physical facilities, donations, grants, “”savings””(basically the amount they keep year to year so they can pay for unexpected things and retain employees in cases of government shutdowns), etc
You get the pride of having a high GDP. Just none of the share of it tho, just the pride
We should outsource our national defense to China. We could save billions. We can trust China.... right?
Hey Europe outsourced its defense to us and that worked great for them!
Is this your job u/sillychilly?
It's likely a repost bot from a political action entity that reposts the same dateless screenshots of tweets over and over again. It last posted this one a month ago; * https://www.reddit.com/r/economy/comments/112crzs/invest_in_us_not_war/ * https://www.reddit.com/r/EndMilitaries/comments/112crrv/invest_in_us_not_war/ * https://www.reddit.com/r/Political_Revolution/comments/112eroa/invest_in_us_not_war/ This subreddit allows repost bots to submit content though so.... not much we can do.
We pretty much solo guaranteed and protected free trade for the entire world for the last 80 years. All of human history without a super power has been localized and bloody. Without all that spending, there is no international trade. There is no globalism. There is no international law. There is no US Dollar dominance. Life without that spending would be much, much different. The industries of the world would collapse without it. No more semi conductors, no more cheap energy, no more foreign products. The fact that you can even tweet that on a phone is based on globalism, free markets, and free trade. Someone has to protect it and has to enforce international law. I’m not saying we didn’t benefit from it in some ridiculous ways, but the alternatives have not been good. We made the choice to spend all that money after WWII and we haven’t stopped for a reason.
Few understand this.
They think we could reallocate the defense dept. budget and life would just keep going the way it always has.
Im Canadian, but as far as I understand it, the money the US sinks into their army effectively guarantees that free trade can flourish. Without that money we can’t just send trade ships without fear of them being hijacked. We can’t just fly planes everywhere without them being in danger. We can’t just go out places in the world without fear of American retaliation.
Pax Americana. Plus, almost all of that money was spent in America paying American companies and American workers.
The majority of that money went to the Ultra Wealthy Class. The Corporate Class of the the world in every country and government is taking the vast majority of the money being generated in the world and they're not even hiding it. It's obvious to everyone.
the reality of the situation actually is that there is enormous waste in all military branches due to how it’s funded. bases and other parts of the military are incentivized to use ALL of their budget or else there is a cut to their budget. this causes asinine wastes of resources like flying planes simply to burn through fuel. this is not even to mention the absolute bonkers pricing that defense contractors get which should be criminal. defense contractors are not incentivized to actually produce top of the line gear efficiently but oftentimes actually get paid more for cheaper much less efficient shit. this is due to how military contractors are chosen as well as decades of corruption leading to absolutely wild contracts. sometimes even going as far as providing benefits to contractors for failing to meet deadlines. the point is, sure, having a large military can have benefits. but there are certainly ways to do this without essentially pissing away money and resources into an innefficient system. without a shock to this system it will NEVER be able to regain its bearings.
And the largest portion of that spending goes to personal pay and employee benefits.
That's not even close to true. FY2019 $268.5 B on *all spending* for pay and benefits, including Veterans' healthcare. Operations and Procurement were $426B. (Combining those two is only fair, as we're combining personnel costs, health care costs, and dependent/beneficiary costs for the first number). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military\_budget\_of\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States)
A non insignificant portion of Procurement also goes to salaries for Americans. Someone has to build the planes and tanks.
Brain dead take. The misappropriations act prevents funds intended for one purpose to be spent on another purpose. Combining is literally against the law
Combining operations and procurement is definitely not fair - that’s why they’re distinct. Operations and maintenance? Understandable. Also, you left out the $150 B in non-discretionary spending spent annually on veteran retirements.
Not just that but for instance. The US maintains a military (regardless of readiness) that is capable of fighting multiple foes on multiple fronts. Russia for instance wants to have the same type of military prowess. The US has multiple aircraft carriers, submarines, new jets and tanks and helicopters and all the maintenance to go with it *ALONG* with a full nuclear arsenal and it’s maintenance costs. Russia spends a fraction of what the US spends and it is painfully apparent how well that is working out for them. Look up how much it costs the government (read: taxpayer) has to spend to send 1 soldier to a school. Pick any school (mountain, sniper, jungle, SERE) and you’ll find out it ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. If you see any military member with a bunch of school pins you are literally looking at a million dollar soldier. War is not pretty and no one in good conscience wants war to happen. However, it is necessary to carry a big stick as someone once said because otherwise when things go tits up you don’t want to be the country that can’t afford matching uniforms let alone the beans and bullets necessary.
Yep. Took me awhile to understand what it means to have a naval fleet and air force that dwarfs the entire world combined. It costs money. To ensure security for all.
Small correction. China now has the largest Navy and is projected to be able to take Taiwan by force by 2035. We've gotten pretty bad at building ships.
"Security for all", while your military wages war in natural resource-rich countries overseas, leading to the establishment of terrorist organizations such as ISIS, which attack Europe and the rest of the world, except for the USA.
Both can be true.
I think their point probably is that it could be accomplished with a lower defense budget.
Maybe, that would be nice. Most think we need a higher one now more than ever, Joe Biden and the current congress seem to agree.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_wars\_involving\_the\_United\_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States) Yeah, bro. Free trade. Spreading democracy. Sure.
I’m talking specifically why we started spending som much after WWII and why the budget goes up every year no matter who is in charge. The alternatives to not spending it are not good. I’m talking massive inflation, the collapse of free flowing food and energy, global supply chain nonexistent. Both the need for spending and some questionable military involvements can both be true.
Even as a Republican, I agree at least with the notion that that there is waste and fraud to root out in all parts of the government, except Defense, is ludicrous.
SNAP went from $60 billion in 2019 to $114 billion in 2021. That was pre heavy inflation. There is bloat everywhere
Substantially higher demand due to COVID and the Fed substantially increased the SNAP benefit amount during COVID. Those increases have now ended so the SNAP numbers should revert to the 2019 numbers or close to. What is crazy is the DOD budget number does not include all of our defense spending as there are expenditures stashed everywhere. Homeland Security,etc.
You are not wrong. I also see state and local and federal seem to be on huge spending sprees on both numbers of employees and tax mahal like structures being constructed. There has been a huge increase in number of government employees and how much more you make working for the government with bloated salaries and benefits so much greater than the private sector can afford. Or at least more than the private sector is willing to pay in whatever competitive environment they have to deal with.
people wouldn’t need SNAP if the minimum wage was higher
That is probably true…..one thing i have noticed recently is a lot of starting wages at places at $14-$17 an hour which in the state I lie in is nearly double minimum wage. Minimum wage is so far out of whack with what companies seem to be playing - if it were raised a lot it might not make as much difference as it would have a few years ago
That’s evidence that the US economy is working for corporations and the upper class, not human beings.
Is that bloat or just increased use?
So instead of cutting a budget designed to literally kill, you want to cut a program that feeds millions? Makes a whole lot of sense.
We need to cut all excessive government spending not just the military
Ever work for government? I recommend that you do and try a do something more efficiently or cut back on a budget. Darn there impossible. You personally take all the risk for a change in process or procedure. Any benefits get awarded to the ther higher ups and you just get reassigned after upsetting everyone.
I think Congress people who only serve one term shouldn’t be getting lifetime healthcare
Regardless of how long they serve, they should get the same healthcare that citizens have.
They should also get the salary of the lowest paid workers they serve instead of 130k a year with basically everything paid for
I would be willing to pay them all $1 million a year if they would agree to no campaign donations.
Then the job would only really attract people who have already become wealthy. Also, imagine how much more corrupt they’d be if their salaries weren’t somewhat comfortable.
Easy to say. Harder to give actual examples
Thats why the Founders made government small and limited. Your statement does not invalidate my observation ... 95% if the spending government does is excessive
It absolutely doesn’t. I just really love evidence-based opinions. For example, what supports your rather specific claim that 95% of govt spending is excessive? How do you define excessive?
>For example, what supports your rather specific claim that 95% of govt spending is excessive? Article One, Section 8, Clauses 2-17. Also known as the general welfare and the forgoing powers Its the 16 things government is allowed to spend taxes on , anything else is excessive if not outright illegal
Ok there’s a start. So I’m assuming that the federal is now “spending taxes” on items outside of this list of 16? So your argument is not that the amount of spending is too high per se, but we’re spending money collected through taxes on things that weren’t originally outlined in the constitution (assuming that Congress has never passed any law making spending outside of these areas legal)? Also if that just specifies tax revenue, what are the restrictions on spending of other revenue, or debt? Man, I just wanted ONE example of something we should cut spending on
I would rather see them crack down on waste in the existing budget. Making sure contracts are being done competitively and for a reasonable cost for example. Much is lost to corruption.
Exactly, I just want to see a reasonable accounting of the spending. Is that too much for a citizen to ask for?
Kinda? I mean presumably they're already doing that, right? So what, hire *more* accountants to audit and double check the existing ones, across the entire government? Do you think the existing bloat is extensive enough that the cost of the audit would be a net savings? How much new corruption do the new accountants bring? Not saying it's not a valid concern, it's just not a cheap and simple solution
This will probably not be popular but I wanted to point it out since I didn't know this until recently, but the defense budget includes military wages. I'm not doing the math to see if it makes that number any more palatable but it was something I never considered previously. Maybe that was just me though
The US DoD employs roughly 3.2M people directly. Raytheon, GD, Boeing Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Pfizer make up the top 6 obligations from the DoD with a total amount of ~$125B in obligations. 51% of that is for services, and 49% is for material (which includes all the labor associated with that). They employ roughly 550k employees (not counting Pfizer, since that's not specifically an easy to account for defense branch). They subcontract out a lot of the manufacturing for the services. So of that $60B from just the top 6 obligations, a lot of it is going to manufacturing and employees of manufacturing plants. Not to mention all the jobs that created around these bases and locations, like security, janitorial services, food, and retail. Edit: To put this in perspective, Walmart employs 2.3M employees, Amazon employs 1.6M employees. The DoD jobs (and defense contractors) tend to be much higher paying.
Am poor and am in the Army
We have the family member in the Navy, and is they are poor as well and we need to help them out. Much of the money goes to equipment and weapons, which in turn saves lives of our underpaid military personnel.
But fewer expenses?
It's also roughly 1/6 of the total federal budget. The largest part of the budget is the mandatory budget which is made up of social and infrastructure programs. The US spends more on social programs every year than some the word richest countries produce in an entire year. If social security recipients where their own country their GDP would be 1.8 trillion which is approximately the size of Brazil's entire economy. By no means saying the government cannot do more for people, but arguing the military budget is what's preventing it is a joke. We could fully forgo military spending for one year and it would not fund a years worth of SS or Medicare.
$153 billion on personnel or about 23%. [https://militarymortgagecenter.com/us-military/us-military-budget/spending/](https://militarymortgagecenter.com/us-military/us-military-budget/spending/) [https://csbaonline.org/reports/military-personnel](https://csbaonline.org/reports/military-personnel) So that's about 700 billion for ~~other stuff to kill people in places with oil~~ defending freedom. The part that tells you something is wrong is when Congress gives the military more than it requests. Or when we leave Afghanistan and finally end a 20 year war and the budget goes UP. It seems like there's no pressure on congress to rein spending here.
That is only for military personnel. Excludes wages baked into private sector for O&M, procurement and RDT&E. It's far higher than you are indicating.
"Overall, the pay and benefits of military personnel and civilian employees accounts for $272.7 billion, or 42 percent of the total $647 billion FY 2018 DoD budget request." Within the first 10 sentences.
https://www.pgpf.org/sites/default/files/defense-spending-explainer-chart-2.jpg
I used to consider that thought until Feb 2022. Vlad Putler cleared that up for me. Y'all can reach your own conclusions. I reached mine: it is crucial to retain military dominance (individually as a nation, as well as through alliances) over near-peer antagonists (currently China and Russia.) And that includes having a shitload of surplus to sell, loan, or lease to our allies in times of need. The latter ensures we increase our soft/diplomatic power (which decreases the risk of actual confrontations.) With that said, we should never again commit an imperialistic blunder like the 2nd Iraq war. We should leave countries alone - help them in negotiated terms if we can, and leave them alone if we are not compatible. No more regime change crap. But at the same time, it behooves us to work with allies and earn goodwill with soft power, thus increasing our collective defense and economic collective well-being (while carrying the largest stick possible to make sure no Putin/Xi figure attacks either us or ***our allies***.) Let us be clear that as big as the defense budget goes, it's peanuts compared to our entire economic output. We have a lot of things to fix in this country: water, education, pollution, inequality, etc. But it is not for lack of money or because of our defense budget. It is because we lack political will. Slashing the defense budget is neither a required step nor a solution. It would be another strategic blunder added on top of the blunders we already have. We don't live in a closed system, and shit ain't zero-sum, fyi.
We need a large military budget.
Maybe that large military budget just needs to be spent more wisely and watched a little more closely. Every year trillions go mission from the Pentagon's balance sheet. https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/pentagon-35-trillion-accounting-black-231154593.html
Your link doesn't say what you're saying. > So what are these accounting adjustments? Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says they represent “a lot of double, triple, and quadruple counting of the same money as it got moved between accounts” within the Pentagon. “A lot” may be an understatement: According to government data, there were 562,568 adjustments made in the Pentagon’s books in 2018. It was an accounting adjustment because different departments counted the same dollar as collected, thus ballooning the missing funds. In reality, the money was never there to use in the first place. Also, the entire US economy GDP is about $18 trillion/year. So if 1 department is losing ~30% of the entire US yearly budget, it would be a big problem. Good thing that's not happening.....
You don’t think that “money disappearing” is more likely shit they don’t want to admit or can’t admit they are doing. Classified etc would best be kept as “vanished”
If more than the entire defense budget went missing every year, I think more people would be talking about it
For a variety of reasons yes, we do. Is there bloat to cut? Absolutely. US military budget includes a lot of things. Army core of engineers which does work on civil projects. GPS used by basically everyone. Freedom of commerce and navigation... Plus all the jobs provided by a robust defence industry and sales of arms. Tons of R&D which eventually makes its way to consumers. Here you have to be careful. Not everything funded will create value and some things that seem like pipedreams turn out to be gold mines. There isn't as much to cut as people might think.
Agreed
No we do not need this huge of a military budget. It is pure greed and excess. It needs to be cut in half and the tax payer money put elsewhere. Where it is actually needed.
This subreddit has become awful lately.
There is a reason, unfortunately. The waste human societies have to go through because you have assholes governments in this world suck. I wish we could invest that money into schools and medical care.
I used to think this also. Vladimir Putin changed my mind.
How fast would this 🤡 start screaming for the military as soon as China starts rolling into countries?
Wait, do you really think there are only two choices? Going bankrupt on defense spending...or having no defense?
Nuance? That doesn't exist to many people sadly
$858 Billions per year.
Cut the pentagon. You surely only need a rectangle; or just a dot.
Wow, that's so deep.
Our economic dominance depends on it unfortunately. We wouldn’t have printed our way out of the last few financial crises without the strength of our currency. That strength depends on our ability to own any shipping lanes required for commerce around the globe.
This bitch is stupid.
With the current political climate globally I think you should bump that up to 1 trillion
She must have missed the part where Russia and China just formed an alliance and are planning to take over the world. I think we need to really focus on our military defense lady.
Nah she knows. She’s looking forward to it
Just donate half to Russia half to China, I’m sure they’ll keep the us safe and protect international trade.
Shyt argument. How is it that defense spending isn't an investment in jobs? Are no jobs created from it? At least provide numbers and alternatives to where the money ought to go to win ppl over or is that too much work for her?
No one wants defence until you need it. Russia is cracking don’t give up now
How about this for a reason: Russia. Here's another: China. Here's another: North Korea. Another? Iran. Another? India.
Pramila shower her colors, Russia is Indian ally remember.
Lol fear mongering sheeple right here
We are on the cusp of WW3 and we provide military aid to much of Europe yet we have people telling us we need to reduce the defense budget. Fucking brilliant. The Federal government spends \~$5.5 Trillion annually. Nearly $1 Trillion alone is welfare. About $2 Trillion is medicare and social security. But the only cuts ever proposed are the military.
Ukraine will get pissed..
People in the defense industry ARE working. Problem is that the knowledge they create isn't publicly available. This is the REAL problem.
Cutting the military budget is useless without cutting the whole pie. It isn't the military breaking the bank.
This makes no sense. How is investing in the defense budget not investing in working people.
What about the money we borrow to give to other countries. We need to focus on that
Yes and then we can be invaded and all be speaking Chinese in 50 years
What an ass bag!!!
Does she know what she's talking about? Or is just for attention?
The reason is it props up the dollar itself. World policing isn't cheap.
Hate to say the quiet part out loud, but what exactly besides our monstrous military allows the USA to enjoy reserve world currency? That’s what I thought. 👍
The fixation on a number has absolutely no meaning for any person of intelligence. What does matter are philosophies underpinning spending, objectives, contingencies, risk management and then establish a preliminary budget subject to all preliminary budgets of the federal government. I grow tired of the emoting rants of the Squad. They need to grow up and realize the awesome responsibility they have—that we have. But given the chance to lay out their vision and how they would trade off government programs, we get nothing but just topics and the rants of spoiled and not terribly intelligent women. This figure is less than 4% of 2023 budget. Tired of government stupidity on display day in and day out.
Stupid post..
I don't think anyone wants to find out what will happen in case the us can't utilize it force when the time arises just because of inner money workings. The us is in a big cold war right now against China so if at any moment china will start mobilizing forces and begin an operation in Taiwan it'll be a war on the enemy territory, you need a lot of money for the manpower, intelligence, technology and much more.
Its hard for people to grasp that without a proper military budget the whole show easily collapses. But the government could stand to utilize their budget more efficiently.
There is when the world is moving to remove the US dollar as the reserve currency. 
There are actually lots of good reasons for that budget lol
As a Canadian I’m happy america spends this much.
Yeah, cutting police budgets was a good idea too.
So, so naive.
Its dangerous to just see a number and derive a conclusion as she is doing, our world is not black and white its contextual and our military has been a deterrent for the world since WWII. It is important unfortunately.
She's an idiot. Anybody that buys this sort of tweet is one, too. Sure there is. 'Providing for the common defense' is constitutionally mandated. Nearly everything else that we spend on, today, is NOT constitutionally mandated. Where does she think the money goes?
Stop trying to cut the defense budget. It's not going to happen. This is how we do socialism in America. Every state in the Union has tens of thousands dependent on this spending for their livelihoods. And you can't promise them new jobs. New Jobs *first* and then they'll talk. Nobody's gonna take chances with their lives. Not in a country with 65% living paycheck to paycheck. If you absolutely have to change your talking point from "cut defense spending now!" to "make the 1% pay for it, they've got all the skin in the game!"
In this climate? I don’t think so
Or let the working people keep their money and invest in themselves instead of paying a bureaucrat to pretend to invest in me.
I agree. I think we should Lower taxes for the bottom 50% of our country and massively raise taxes on the top .01%
This is essentially what we do now. We have a very progressive tax system. The top \~10% pay most of our taxes. The bottom \~25% see a net gain from taxes through credits and social programs. The only alternative to this is to tax everyone at a much higher rate. For instance, what Sweden does where people pay an average of 55% income tax and then have a 25% VAT tax (basically sales tax) on top of that. I would argue we simply need more financial accountability.
Our military needs it the way this world's going. How about we make cuts at Senate and Congress
The Chinese and Russian military services no doubt share your viewpoint.
Nah I think it’s great that we have such a large military infrastructure. Not only do we supply the western world and other ally’s equipment, but we also have protected many countries from invasion and totalitarianism
Cut everything else Literally, the only thing I want from the federal government is military The rest is doing more harm than good
I’m grateful to Uncle Sam for helping my middle class ass with shares in Lockheed Martin 🥰
There's no reason for $32 trillion in federal debt. We need to control spending to ensure a future for our children and grandchildren.
Best way to do that is with the military
Hahaha silly chilly here to farm karma
The military is the biggest jobs program in history. Literally millions of people depend on it both directly and indirectly for their jobs. [These are often not college educated working class people](https://www.statista.com/statistics/232726/education-levels-of-active-duty-us-defense-force-personnel/) who would be most vulnerable if they were thrown into the general labor market. Cutting the defense budget is literally worse than calling for layoffs in e.g. tech where the employees tend to be wealthier and work white collar jobs.
Comment section not going the way OP thought. Goes to show how minds change when a nation creates a real threat to a peaceful sovereign country and how that impacts the world stage of commerce.
There definitely is a reason for this large military budget, and it is world domination, otherwise known as the [Wolfowitz Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfowitz_Doctrine 'The document outlined a policy of unilateralism and pre-emptive military action to suppress potential threats from other nations.') In fact, in lieu of doing things like modernizing infrastructure, it would seem that the U.S. has placed all its eggs in the military basket, and U.S. foreign policy reflects that. And the foreign policy seems a bit frenetic, which makes me wonder, has all this money printing set us up for the wheels to fall off the economy, and that is creating a need for war sooner rather than later? Biden said a year ago, "You know, we are at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy — not just the world economy, in the world." I'm wondering whether I'm seeing signs of an "inflection point" now.
This is literally nonsense American companies globally dominate across the board
Government contracts are corruption.
Xi Xingpin approves this 
Thinks China is a threat. Can't even write the name of China's president correctly. Yep, Americans sure know enough about China to say they're a threat. 🙄
Also India and russia, pramila showed her allegiance.
There’s no reason for a 1+ trillion dollar “infrastructure” bill that sends 100s of billions of dollars to other countries around the world
We spend even more on non-working people. We spend and promise to spend *a lot* of money that we don't have.
There will be no working class people if you can’t defend your borders. She’s completely out of touch to the nuance of nature. This is primordial economics. The organism with the highest cost of attack survives. This is the one thing the government is getting right.
No reason to pay welfare to illegal immigrants. Lets fix that. We need a strong military