[Acton]

The New YOrk Times, continuing its attacks on civilization generally, has a kicker in the print edition of this story that reinforces the notion that spending cuts for military spending don't cost as much as say, spending cuts in education and transportation.

When is the Grey Lady going to get a clue that she can't expect to be taken seriously in the future if she keeps making statements that are belied by the facts? The article notes the SERIOUS R&D developments that can be traced to military spending, but does not record the societal benefits of having a trained workforce, of industrial spending, of how historically military spending has helped, how the military spending has created a network of cell towers in Afghanistan, etc. This is a joke of an article.

[NonValueAdded]

Just out of curiosity, will RIF’ed soldiers be entitled to unemployment compensation? Will their “jobs” count as lost or simply disappear? Did they ever count? Will the soldiers count as job seekers (which should result in a big spike in the unemployment number) or will they be absorbed in the under-reported U6 number?

[rbg81]

“You can argue for the benefits in geopolitical terms, but if we’re talking about jobs and the economy, it doesn’t make sense.”

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Yeah, sure. To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi: spending on unemployment insurance is the most effective way to create jobs. [/s]

[Vince Ferrer]

We need to cut the federal budget, and the military is no exception. Some of this article was pretty good, like investigating how well military R & D pays off. But for the most part the article completely misses the point.

When deciding between the military, education, and transportation, the military is the most constitutional. Certainly constitutionality should be a factor in what should be cut in order to fix our budget problems.