No one need work hard to come up with rationalizations or justifications. The Pentagon has far more money than it knows what to do with or can keep track of.
Just a few examples of countless others:
The Pentagon Is Wasting Billions Of Dollars Because It Can't Audit Its Own Contracts
Pentagon Overpaid Billionaire Oilman By Up to $200 Million, Audit Finds
Special Report: The Pentagon's doctored ledgers conceal epic waste
Pentagon Unable to Account for Missing Iraqi Millions
It used to be the two and one-half wars strategy to now one war. We are trying to develop a mission plan that fits into the budget we want rather than using a threat assessment of the dangers posed to us by our present and future adversaries.
The scheme to budget/spend enough to support two wars simultaneously was developed decades ago & is severely outdated. Combat is much different now than it was then.
In addition, we're long past being able to afford our military adventures around the world. We borrow money to dump billions into places like Iraq & Afghanistan & leave it to our kids & grandkids to pay the bills. It's been this way for a long time, across multiple administrations.
“The scheme to budget/spend enough to support two wars simultaneously was developed decades ago & is severely outdated.”
It is not outdated at all. Suppose NKorea attacks SKorea and China attempts to invade Taiwan? Not to mention a miscalculation on Russia’s part by invading a NATO Baltic country. Peace comes through strength and it is the first responsibility of a government to its people.
You mentioned Afghanistan. Do you really think that was an adventure and was not a correct response after AQ hit the US and killed 3,000 Americans?
Really? The waste and abuse associated with Medicare, Medicaid, and SS far exceeds what is happening with DOD spending.
Medicare And Medicaid Fraud Is Costing Taxpayers Billions
"When President Obama pushed through his health care bill, he cut more than $500 billion (over 10 years) in future Medicare spending in order to claim the bill was “paid for.” A better option would have been to aggressively target Medicare and Medicaid fraud, which could have provided the same amount of savings, and possibly more.
For example, federal authorities announced on May 2 they had arrested 107 health care providers, including doctors and nurses, in several cities and charged them with cheating Medicare out of $452 million.
The problem isn’t new. Federal officials set up the Medicare Fraud Strike Force in 2007, which visited at random nearly 1,600 businesses in Miami, ground zero for Medicare fraud, that had billed Medicare for durable medical equipment. Officials found that nearly a third of the businesses, 481, didn’t even exist, yet they had billed Medicare for $237 million over the previous year, according to National Public Radio.
Indeed, scamming Medicare and Medicaid is so lucrative that the Russian and Nigerian mobs have gotten involved. And one of the New York crime families has moved to Florida because defrauding Medicare is both more lucrative and less dangerous than some of the traditional organized crime activities.
And Medicaid is just as bad, or worse. New York City has been a huge problem for Medicaid with one former official suggesting that 40 percent of NYC’s Medicaid payments are “questionable. ” The New York Times, in a multi-story expose several years ago, reported that a Brooklyn dentist had filed 991 claims in one day.
How much Medicare and Medicaid fraud is there? No one knows for sure. In 2010 the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report claiming to have identified $48 billion in what it termed as “improper payments.” That’s nearly 10 percent of the $500 billion in outlays for that year. However, others, including U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, suggest that there is an estimated $60 to $90 billion in fraud in Medicare and a similar amount for Medicaid. Big money!
The scheme to budget/spend enough to support two wars simultaneously was developed decades ago & is severely outdated. Combat is much different now than it was then.
How different? Have you ever been in combat? Conventional warfare remains a very real threat whether it is on the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, the Middle East, or Europe. Treaty obligations will guarantee US involvement.
In addition, we're long past being able to afford our military adventures around the world. We borrow money to dump billions into places like Iraq & Afghanistan & leave it to our kids & grandkids to pay the bills. It's been this way for a long time, across multiple administrations.
Is it our adventurism or is it do the fact that countries like Iraq invade their neighbors and provide sanctuary for terrorists who attack us and our allies? Was it adventurism to go into Afghanistan to pursue the people who attacked us on 9/11? Do you believe that militant Islamic fundamentalism is an existential threat to us and our allies? Is it our adventurism that prompted the Russians to takeover part of Ukraine?
As far as our kids and grandkids paying the bills, SS and Medicare represent an unfunded liability of over $60 trillion. And we are spending trillions more on Medicaid and food stamps. And we have just added another huge entitlement program called Obamacare.