blah blah, and George W. Bush said when he came into office that we need to get out of the nation building business and stop using our military for nation building, a year later in response to 9/11 we took on two wars "Building Nations" under George W. Bush. You see, people and especially our politicians need to get over the hard line crap, they all have to adapt to a changing world. Circumstances change and directions have to change with them. That is why it is so funny when a politician campaigns on promises to do this and do that when all along there is no way to predict what will be happening in a year or two.

because most of the increase in debt was because Bush never claimed the bill for the wars he started and Bush ruined the economy leaving Obama to try and keep the entire world from financial ruin. Any other questions?

idiotic nonsense; how are the costs of the wars being expensed differently now then they were under Bush stillemployed?

Dems have TRIPLED the spending rate of the Bush years; you want to make the claim dems spent it all on wars? or admit they have SKYROCKETED non-military spending? you cant have it both ways lefties

Right you are Rob! I don't know why "stillemployed" is still employed, with that kind of reasoning!(smiley face with food stamps in hand).

rob:

During the bush years, the two wars were being costed under spending resolutions, so you didn't see the resulting debt until after the end of the fiscal year. Even then the costs weren't included in the final year budget tally, but only in the post year debt numbers. It never showed up as part of the deficit.

One of the changes that occurred after the Democrats took control of the house and senate was that the war costs were being included in the projected budget PRIOR to the year and was included in the deficit projections. Instantly increasing the deficit numbers, but not materially changing spending.

Now in the early years, it was hard to predict what the war would cost because the original plans to be out in a year or two obviously didn't come to pass, but the numbers were still largely hidden from obvious public view. You had to dig deeper in order to figure it out. The other part of it is that those 'emergency spending bills' had other non war effort spending on it, so it can be harder to determine exactly what the war was costing.

Rob.... that's flat out lie! Rememeber that FY 2009 was BUSH'S last budget! Dont assign that $1.3T deficit to the president who INHERITED it! And remember, such a deficit can NOT be eliminateed within a few years. It might take at least 5-7 years to do it.

tom

In addition to that, the increased Social Security and Medicare spending is as a result of the increased retirement of the baby boomers. This is definitely not the result of the Democratic party. It is just the nature of the statistics of the national population.

To Mike7-- For your information, civil service employees of the US Government have a defined contribution plan which is FERS (which is 401K like) as their primary retirement vehicle, unlike their old system (CSRS) which was a defined benefit plan which was eliminated in 1983 for new civil service Federal employees. Also, civil service Federal employees are required to pay a percentage (I think it is 30 percent) of their health insurance premiums under the Federal employees health insurance system. And generally a FERS retirement account goes up and down in value just like your 401(K), and the government contributions to a typical FERS retirement account are not lucrative (2 percent of salary versus up to 6 percent of salary for an employer match (max) for a 401(K) plan).

The only US Government people who are now exempt from FERS, are active duty military, members of Congress and the President. Active duty military must serve 20 years active duty to get retirement benefits under a defined benefit plan (with the retirement benefits being at about 50 percent of "high three" active duty pay for 20 years service). I do not know about members of Congress and the President, though.

Regarding health care, for active duty military, they and their families are either covered under the Military Health Care system, or Tricare, for active duty dependents and military retirees/dependents (for Tricare, the active duty military member must pay a small health insurance premium).

Again, for healthcare, I do not know what the requirements are for the members of Congress and the President.

So Mike 7. Get your facts straight before you quote about lucrative Federal Government retirements, and 100 percent paid health care for Federal Government workers. Many Federal workers would be better off in Private Industry if middle class jobs were available in Private Industry right now. But they are not, so at least one benefit the Federal worker has now is job security, which is far better than in Private Industry.

mike

"should we deem for them to have it"

That is a pretty arrogant and offensive statement to be honest. Do you deem for the CEO of your health insurance company to make 60 million per year? Oh wait, that is between the company and the board of directors.

To TIm, Seattle,

Talking about Medicare, do you remember the last Patty Murray ad campaign which was ran in 2010 claiming that as a result of Patty Murray's efforts, a hospital was "saved" from being closed in the Eastern Washington town of Wenatchee. A very good "sell" for Patty Murray.

Although the Rossi people did not run a counter ad to this particular ad that Patty Murray ran, KING 5 news did an investigation and found out what Patty Murray actually did was to push though Congress an elimination of Medicare reimbursement caps for doctor owned medical facilities such as doctor owned clinics and hospitals. Just so happened that the hospital in Wenatchee which was "saved" from being closed was a small doctor owned hospital which was exempt from the Medicare reimbursement caps as a result of Patty Murrays legislation, whereas the larger community hospital (which was NOT doctor owned) down the street in Wenatchee was NOT exempt from the Medicare reimbursement caps. And both you and I know that Wenatchee has a LOT of retirees on Medicare.

Maybe Rossi should have run that counter ad. I personally voted for Patty Murray but I voted absentee before this specific KING 5 investigation aired. If I voted after seeing this investigative piece, I would have probably switched my vote to Rossi.

There is an ebook on Amazon called "HOW TO SAVE THE U.S. ECONOMY FROM COLLAPSE". I read it and it's great. It describes how to eliminate the national debt in 10 years without reductions in Social Security, Medicare or defense and lowering taxes.

And I might just read it, Mundo...but again, my point is that there is nothing magic about it being done in 10 Years.

mundo, the majority of this debt was incurred in 30 years (the total debt was less than a billion dollars when Reagan became president), there is NO way it is going to be paid off in 10. That is just lunacy.

still,

Guess you forgot about the 2008 Congress that was taken over by the democrats, ala Pelosi and Reid up until last November.....that really do all the spending. And, the housing crisis started by Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Freddie and Fannie.

I'm laughing at you........I'm laughing some more..........

Too true! I am laughing some more, too! What a hypocrite you are, stillemployed! Open your eyes and read a newspaper!

Andrew,

Wow, I'm impressed.....You get all your knowledge from Bill Maher.

Hardly--the Financial Times agrees, as mentioned, that if you want to keep spending as recklessly as we do on the military and our entitlements, you'll have to raise taxes. Every economist I've read in their pages agrees on that (you may have read other articles in their pages that I haven't read, so feel free to post examples of it--if, that is, you have any actual evidence to refute me with...)

andrew your post is mostly rhetoric; so it's easy to refute; just ask YOU to back up the parts that are pure rhetoric. for example what is your proof that it is a "myth" that the private sector can do a better job serving the needs of seniors?

and the left has exactly NO proposals for cutting entitlement programs costs. come to think of it the left had 4 whole years of a dem majority and never cut defense spending either.

the current government is also not interested in defending just our borders; put aside the asinine implication that the most powerful country n the world can have a military that just defends it's borders. we have to be able to project power. refute that

Um, sorry, Rob, but my proof that it is a "myth" that the private sector can do a better job serving the medical care needs of seniors than Medicare, is the fact that before Medicare, they didn't do so. Why do you think Medicare was created in the first place? It was because seniors were being left to die without it, if they were too poor to afford care.

And I'm afraid that since you're the one claiming the private sector WILL do a better job, the burden of proof is on you, too, not just me: how well did it do so before Medicare existed? What studies do you have that show that it will? Your side (in the person of Paul Ryan) made the claim that privatizing Medicare would do better. On what grounds do you make that claim?

And yes, I'll gladly refute the idea that we have to "project power," and can't just defend our own borders: or, actually, I don't need to, because the dollars and sense we're talking about right here are doing the refuting for me. You can't afford it, that's why. Duh? If you could, we wouldn't need to discuss anything at all. Half a trillion dollars a year is pushing us into a downgraded credit rating as we speak, that's why.

Taking out even more money than that each year, on our government's "credit cards" (really, loans from China and other central banks), just in order to "project power" isn't working. For one thing, we can't afford it any more, as is obvious to anyone who hasn't lost their minds trying to protect their own golden-egg laying goose; and for another thing, who, exactly, do you think is impressed by the way we're projecting power now? We spend half a trillion dollars a year on a gold-plated military, and I hate to break it to you, but when people look at us in quagmires like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, they're not impressed; they can see we're flailing. All this out-of-control military spending isn't "projecting power"--it's projecting loss of control, and weakness.

Refute THAT.

Andrew, your full of hot air and half truths, bolstered by NO FACTS! Consider yourself REFUTED! By the way, don't forget to include Libya in your quagmires! As well as Syria, etc.!

Hhhhello? I DID include Libya as one of the quagmires, in the post right there above yours... ??

I think you mean the F-22 program. The F-22 program would have cost a lot less since that plane was meant to be a very cheap lower tech export fighter.

Anyways, the F-22 was designed to fight a different war. It is an air superiority fighter, not a ground attack fighter. So its use in either of the two wars is just inappropriate. You don't see any of the european nations deploying eurofighters either. And that is for the same reason. It just isn't tactically appropriate.

Having said that, the F-22 and the F-35 in my mind are HUGE wastes of money. Yes a new fighters were needed, mostly to keep the skills up to date, but the technical challenges of both of these planes which is costing the most money have nothing to do with the design of a plane, it has to do with trying to build into it, something that just isn't a natural fit on most planes, that being stealth. It works on the B2 and the F117 because they are bombers, and the flight path of a bomber can be planned. You can't do that when you are patrolling with a fighter.

The worst problem with that cost however is that there is absolutely NO ability to transfer that technology to civilian projects so you can't recoup that investment in secondary and tertiary economic activity. It just ends there.

As for Libya, I would be less concerned about it if it was only what it was stated to be, enforcing a no fly zone. But it has ended up being MUCH More than that. The ONLY thing that should be done is making sure that no libyan government or rebel fighter planes take to the air, that is IT.

To Johnathan,

In terms of transfer of Government technology to civilian projects, certain DOD technology HAS transferred to civilian projects and civilian products and services. The Internet which we are talking on now initially evolved as the DOD DARPAnet which was established as a vehicle for communications which would survive a Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) nuclear attack on the United States (if there was one) in the 1970's. The same goes for GPS (these are DOD satellites sending GPS signals), electronic miniaturazation, plasma displays (used on your big screen TV's), military quality assurance procedures, and many others.

But you are right that Stealth technology has no application in civilian projects (unless we want to build stealth airliners which are not practicable), and probably many other military technologies like better guidance systems for cruise missiles.

As far as building military aircraft, what must be focused on right now is building simpler more cost effective military aircraft. We still use B-52's in our military arsenal and these airframes that comprise the B-52 which are still flying date back to the 1960's (though the B-52D which was built in the mid 50's was retired), and there are countless mod's (modifcations) to these planes to keep them going.

The same goes for the C-130's which again were started in the 60's and 70's (I remember flying on an AC-130 gunship in Vietnam during the Vietnam War). F-4 fighters are long gone from active US Military, but I think are still flown in some Air National Guard squardrons. Possibly building new F-15's and new F-18's to replace the older aging F-15's and F-18's may be more cost effective instead of the F-22 and F-35's but without the Stealth technology which is costly.

Just my thoghts....

henry:

I haven't said that it hasn't, in fact, that has been one of the major strengths. The basic research that went into NACA and NASA and the Aerospace companies that has gone on to be of extremely high value to the civilian industry. That is what made the investments in the military up until about the 70's extremely beneficial with cascading returns on the investment. It isn't just stealth by the way, there are a lot of items that I can quote but stealth is the easiest one because it is both an extremely expensive technology as well as an easily identifiable one.

Today however, not only has that cascading investment not happened due to less and less relevance to civilian use, the companies themselves are no longer mixed market companies, with only Boeing really staying in the civilian industry. Lockheed basically has NO civilian business at all, nor really have they attempted to conduct any in the last decade or so. The last report that I saw was that 100% of all of Lockheed's business was government in nature, 85% US government, 15% foreign government.

What we need to do with planes is to keep the skill sets alive in being able to design, build and manufacture new planes. Yes, we need something that isn't focussed on stealth. Most of the western world has lost its ability to design and build new planes at this point. British Aerospace (BA Systems now) pretty much lost that when they sold, lock, stock and barrel, the Harrier to McDonnell Douglas. Right now, probably only the French have ensured that they keep that ability (how is that with the complaints that other countries defend themselves. Only France who everyone pisses on has tried to ensure that they keep that ability).

As for the military Aircraft, the only B52's left in service are the H models. The G's were retired during a round of strategic limitations negotiations under Reagan or Bush I. The C-130J's are essentially a new plane, but even there, Lockheed no longer has a civilian business, so how does that translate to the civilian market?

The F4's were retired from the ANG years ago (There are a few still operating in some foreign air forces however if I recall correctly, they have mostly just run out of airframe life). The F16 has become the standard fighter aircraft, though there may be some F18 squadrons. There are no F22 squadrons in the ANG.

I am not sure about how much you know about aircraft manufacture, but once the production lines are closed, the jigs are generally destroyed (these are the tools, forms and other components that are used to build the planes). What this means is that you can't just start up production again, even if you wanted to. The fixed costs that are incurred when you set up the production line are incurred again. You are better off just designing a new fighter from scratch. (there are other reasons for this but this is long enough as it is, no need for a book lol)

Excuse me Jonathan, you're right--typo, should read "F-22." Thanks for your thoughtful posts.

Well not many have seen an F-20 lol. I had that honour of seeing one when one of the three paid a visit to Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada for flight tests. It was a beautiful plane in my view.

yep these boards are thick with progressive plants pretending obama isnt a progressive FAILURE

Amen! Nobody can be that blind! On the other hand.......

Rob,

Logic does not apply to the left!

true; these are the same loons ludicrously still blaming Bush for Progressives FAILURE

However, it is "change",......for the worse!

My dear hypocrite, if you post a hundred posts in a row, to beat people into agreeing with you, that's about the same effect as 100 lines... at least I'm not saying the same thing over and over, and ignoring the stuff that I have no answer for like a chickens---.

But if you'd care to apply some of that logic Bernie claims to love, could you tell me why, exactly, we "needed" to go into Iraq and spend 8 years there? If you'd like to learn to read, my post says clearly that we do need a DEFENSIVE military, one capable of defending our borders (against the huge, looming threat of a Canadian or Mexican invasion). If we hadn't stuck our noses into every country on earth, then Al Qaeda would never have attacked us (they only did this because we were in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East) on 9/11, and we wouldn't have had to go into Afghanistan either. But Al Qaeda didn't even have anything to DO with Iraq, as any Freshman in International Relations could have told you.

Unless you're one of those who thinks Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were the same person; if so, just let me know.

Pare it down to a SENSIBLE, defensive military, not one that goes into every country on the planet that's bigger than Kiribati. Do that because your half-trillion-dollar military needs to be paid for--with taxes, and there's no other way to pay for it, and because you don't want to face that. That's what I said. Not "get rid of our military." Don't misquote me, just because you have no answer to the points I raised.

more long, boring hyperbole; and you seem to be getting angrier; lol!

i have several answers to the points you raised; i posted them. go cry

moronic sarcasm aside; are Mexico and Canada our only "threats"?

it's hard to understate the stupidity in your posts. i mean al Qaeda attacked us becaue we were in Saudi Arabia with the permission of the government there; and in your mind this means we somehow deserved what we got?

where did one of the masterminds of the 1993 WTC bombing go after fleeing America in the wake of that bombing? thanks in advance

That's fine, Rob353, I know you're afraid to answer, I don't mind that you're ducking the question... as mentioned, your kind will have your way: a trillion dollar military, spending more and more each year, until the dollar is ruined and our creditors go away.

Anyway, anyone out there who's honest (instead of a paid shill, doing a really bad job at their propaganda) will see that Rob had no answer when asked, "so how will you pay for this military, if you want to keep spending more and more on it and taking it everywhere in the world, whether it threatens us or not?" If anyone with the nerve (that is, who's able to face their own side's sacred spending cows instead of pretending that money will come from Glenn Beck's butt to pay for all this) wants to answer for him, go right ahead--Rob is boring me as much as I'm boring him, until you can answer that straight question with a straight answer.

Anyone?

we didnt need to go into Afghanistan because; in the asinine logic of yours; al qaeda only disliked us because of a couple of bases on Saudi soil or elsewhere in the region?

i'm not ducking anything; your posts are so stupid they raise more questions than they answer

I said don't misquote me. I did not EVER say we "deserved what we got" because we were in Saudi Arabia. I said that that's the reason why we were attacked, and it is. Nobody in the Twin Towers "deserved" to be killed, and I never said that, as you know.

If you misquote someone, and pretend they said a bunch of stuff they never said, it's small wonder that you think everyone that doesn't love your party and hate the other (as if life would be rosey and fine if we had republican rule again; we all know the recession started when they WERE ruling us). You're either a careless reader, or a liar. Either way, you're not much worth talking to. Leave the floor to intelligent conservatives, who can read properly, and who can be a man or a woman about it and tell the truth, when asked a straight question.

oh the obligatory rant about Glen Beck? lol

i'm not misquoting me; that was clearly your implication. stop crying and man up

you; not misquoting you. that was clearly your implication. geesh you're a crybaby

Man up, Andrew, you are quite the whiner!

(Shrug) Seems to me that you and Rob353 are the ones whining... the two of you had to make three posts in a row saying exactly the same thing, sounds like whining to me. If you can't take being called a liar, and need to whine about it that much yourself, then Rob, I'd say you shouldn't lie. As you know, I never said we "deserved what we got," so your saying that I did was a lie. If you can't deal with it, I'm going to call you out on it, and you can whine about it yourself, all you like.

Feel free to make a SUBSTANTIVE rebuttal anytime, but since you haven't managed to show adult reading comprehension skills, I'm going to see if there are any grown-ups around who can... call me when supply-side economics works out for us.

shut up.

Yeah Rob, Michael Sextons in the world CAN'T handle the truth! I believe I detect a trembling lip!

to tf mulderig,

Not only would I include Federal Government employees and prospective Federal Government employees, but I would add Federal Government Contractors/Subcontractors, prospective Federal Government Contractors/Subcontractors, and people employed or going to be employed by these Federal Government Contractors/subcontractors and prospective Federal Government Contractors/subcontractors.

That took a mouthful....

God is waiting; unfortunately, NOT for you!

Plus the $900 BILLION in INTEREST a YEAR.

comical considering it is dems causing the massive increase of debt that results in increased payments just to service the debt

"comical considering it is dems causing the massive increase of debt that results in increased payments just to service the debt"

Your statement is amusing considering when Bush left office the national debt was 10.5 trillion... YEAH...those interest payments were MUCH smaller.

ROFL

duh; tax cuts increase revenues; jobs will more than pay for the defense budget. and the tax cuts arent the cause of the debt; because otherwise Dems wouldn't have RETAINED THEM. also dems have ABOUT TRIPLED the spending rate of the Bush years

i'm not angry at all; Dems have outspent the cost of both wars and then some. so your idiotic argument is a red herring. both the wars already have draw down dates; so they will become less expensive and soon. i'm laughing at you as you pretend i'm the angry one!!

and it takes a special kind of obtuseness to ignore history; Dems will spend any savings from a weaker, smaller military by increasing spendibg elsewhere. they already have

we are responsible for more other countries safety and security than any other country on earth; BY FAR. so again put in context all you are doing is ranting and raining red herrings and straw man arguments

Can we get a dictator in here please...These people are too damn stupid to run a country on votes. They can't see 10 years in either direction

another idiotic straw man argument; guerrilla warfare maybe in creasing; but so are the conventional forces of our chief enemies like iran and china. zero sum arguments are for the ignorant

ya lets kill the military

Please answer the following questions please.

1. How many people serve?

2. How many civilian jobs are tied to military?

3. How many companies would be lost ?

4. How many businesses live off the wages of said people?

"Dems have outspent the cost of both wars and then some"

Cost of wars... $ 3 trillion. Cost of tax cuts.. $ 2.5 trillion cost of Medicare drug bill $ 1.5 trillion and let us not even mention the banks that Bush bailed out. Sorry... Obama hasn't quite outspent Bush yet as much as Fox news would like you to believe.

"Please answer the following questions please.1. How many people serve? 2. How many civilian jobs are tied to military? 3. How many companies would be lost ? 4. How many businesses live off the wages of said people?"

That'd be irrelevant...besides since when have republicans cared about anyone having jobs? They would rather cut jobs... cut government workers and salaries... but oh no say cut the military and they get all up in arms!

It's not really the people in the military that are the real cost anyway... its ridiculously priced weapons like the F-22 / aircraft carriers / the B-2 Stealth.

We have missiles that can hit a ten foot air shaft from hundreds of miles away and you think we actually need these cold war weapons against the Taliban? We are the only country in the world that has more than one operational aircraft carrier. We are the only country that sends a $ 2 billion dollar plane to do the job a missile costing a few million could do. We have access to airports across the world yet we are the only country that floats 11 floating airports around the world. Stop the insanity...

Component
Military
Enlisted
Officer
Female
Civilian

Army
548,000
456,651
88,093
74,411
243,172

Marine Corps^[21]
203,095
182,147
20,639
12,290

Navy
332,000
276,276
51,093
51,029
182,845

Air Force
323,000
261,193
64,370
64,137
154,032

Coast Guard
41,000
32,647
8,051
4,965
7,396

Total Active
1,445,000
1,174,563
224,144
203,375
580,049

Army National Guard
403,616

Army Reserve
205,000

Marine Corps Forces Reserve
40,000

Navy Reserve
67,000

Air National Guard
107,000

Air Force Reserve
67,000

Coast Guard Reserve
11,000

Total Reserve Components
833,616

Other DOD Personnel

97,976

"but so are the conventional forces of our chief enemies like iran and china. zero sum arguments are for the ignorant"

Oh gosh darn... Iran and China... do you know how much China spends on their military... would it be like 7.5 times less than us? Yes they have a big army but their navy is hardly blue water. Keep in mind that its unlikely we would fight China simply because of the fact that if we do they are out $ 3 trillion they hold in U.S. dollars and property. If a fight escalated to the point where one would try to take over the other then nuclear weapons would probably be used and if that happened then there wouldn't be much to worry about for both sides because whats left of us would be floating in the upper atmosphere as radioactive dust particles.

Iran... yeah those advanced Iranian tanks... and their advanced air force... quaking in my boots there. Checked the naval capabilities? Please don't make me laugh.

Iran is mostly bluster... they are country where a significant portion of the population is under 30 and actually likes the west! Why would you want to fight them? It's their leadership that blusters and they have little in the way of anything but bluster.

We are the only country that sends a $ 2 billion dollar plane to do the job a missile costing a few million could do. We have access to airports across the world yet we are the only country that floats 11 floating airports around the world. Stop the insanity...

You are the one who is insane

We spend Billions on a plane because the human can make a decision a missle can't. Why have a war when a NUKE can do the job ? Ya lets kill even more civilians with a missle that can't think.

Floating airports have alot of fire power and so do the support craft. Planes only fly so far and trying to refuel a dozen aircraft at once doesn't work well. Those mobile airports have a purpose unlike your liberal spew that is all opinion based nonsense.

Really want to save money use a bullet they are cheap.

"We spend Billions on a plane because the human can make a decision a missle can't. Why have a war when a NUKE can do the job ? Ya lets kill even more civilians with a missle that can't think"

So your saying a B-2 pilot can make a decision to bomb an airshaft from a few thousand feet in the air that a spy satellite that can see the exact same thing can't? Uh huh... dude if you pulled out a beer on the ground and there was a spy satellite above you they could read the writing on the can and tell you how many ounces it is. Your thinking is antiquated.

"Why have a war when a NUKE can do the job ? Ya lets kill even more civilians with a missle that can't think." Yes it makes complete sense to irradiate an entire area for thousands of years and send radiocative particles into the atmosphere that spread to other countries which might also have nuclear weapons themselves... RIGHTTTTTT.

"Planes only fly so far and trying to refuel a dozen aircraft at once doesn't work well."

Uh huh and there is no country we are friends with near our enemies... oh please...

Oh and incidentally how many civilians are going to be killed if you launch a nuke? Your thinking is non-sequitur.

The neutron bomb is your friend with only a 12.3 yr 1/2 life.

No Iam putting a price tag on war and a NUKE is the most cost effective.

Just using your rational is all

Randy, you're quite right in saying that resizing to a military that meets our defensive needs, instead of having one that we use for aggressive war in all military theatres of the world, will have economic impact on those it throws out of work--which is why we never should have recklessly allowed it to balloon in an ever-growing fashion. If your solution is therefore to postpone the pain of reforms, by allowing it to balloon ever further, as we've been doing, instead of making a change, then--congratulations! That is probably just about what is going to happen.

Until our credit rating is downgraded, and our dollar is ruined, as creditor nations demand too-high interest rates, in exchange for buying our Treasury bonds. We could manage it better, by sensibly walking our military budget back to earth. But I have to admit, your idea of just continuing to let military spending go whichever way those profiting from it want it to go (that is, always up) is far more dramatic.

Excuse me, not only will it have an impact on those it throws out of work, but of course, on all those who depend on the military's and the military contractors' wage-earners. It's a perfectly valid point, but to argue that military spending must therefore remain at half a trillion dollars a year, or higher, and our military presence must remain in dozens if not hundreds (if you count military intelligence and other low-level presence) of countries all over the world, almost all of which will NEVER attack us even if we aren't there any longer, no longer makes sense.

If we can't afford it, we can't afford it. When your credit card company freezes your account, there's certainly pain; you may even have counted on buying dinner with your credit cards; but that doesn't argue for someone over his spending limit to keep on charging. And we only own the bank that makes the credit cards as long as our economy is booming, which it hasn't under Bush OR Obama since 2007, and as long as someone's still buying our Treasury bonds, which they won't, when our ballooning deficit, caused in good part by our out-of-control military spending on things unrelated to actual defense, causes Moody's to downgrade our credit rating. Them's the facts. Face them or don't, one way or another, that spending is going to go down.

Oh, and China would NEVER be any threat to us if we weren't involved in their neighborhood. They stay in their own backyard, and always have. By all means, they're an elephant that can swagger against our allies, like Japan, India and other east Asian countries. But that doesn't mean we need to foot the bill and provide the defense for those countries. We just can't.

Also, regarding China: when I tell you about the buyers of our bonds who'll demand changes as a condition for further buying of them, who do you think that is? Who do you think is SUPPORTING our war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, by buying our Treasury bonds? Primarily China's central bank.

They haven't wanted to divest completely from the dollar before now, because of course, if the dollar tanks, their own store of dollars will lose a lot of its value. But if we're actually ever in a confrontation with China, either directly or through a proxy war like over Taiwanese independence or Japanese sovereignty (such as the disputes China and Japan have had over islands with natural gas reserves nearby), what makes you think we'll be able to stand up to them? They don't want to hurt themselves by pulling out of the dollar (that is, by ceasing to buy our Treasuries), but they will hurt us that way if it ever came to war. So building a huge conventional military and thinking we'll one day use it against our creditors is ridiculous.

patrick

well that b2 can be reused, so your economics don't make sense because they don't factor that into account. Now as far as the B2 is concerned, the government did stop it because they realized that it would never recoup the investment, however, it would have just been a complete waste if they just cancelled it, so they equipped a squadron. That however makes the plane that much more expensive.

Those jobs are for hard working, tax-paying, American born Republicans.

The rest of you can go collect your food stamps.