The Overhyped Defense Cuts

Townhall.com ^ | July 10, 2011 | Steve Chapman

[Kaslin]

Politicians often rail against government spending, except when it goes to the military. Conservatives believe there is no such thing as too much defense spending, and liberals don't argue, for fear of being labeled appeasers. So when there is talk of the two parties agreeing to cut the Pentagon budget, it sounds like a monumental change.

But probably not. It's a good thing that defense, which accounts for roughly a fifth of all federal outlays, is no longer considered immune to the need for frugality. But both supporters and opponents have a stake in portraying any trims as far more significant than they really are.

The Obama administration reportedly has decided to boost its planned defense cuts from $400 billion over the next 12 years to as much as $700 billion. That sounds like a lot -- considering that the earlier, smaller figure had sparked furious objections.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned it would be "a grievous mistake" that would someday "be measured in American lives lost." Mitt Romney, in line with most other presidential candidates, insisted "we should not reduce our commitment to national security."

Some Republicans in Congress may be prepared to subject defense spending to the sort of scrutiny applied elsewhere. But if you think the tea party favorites will demand serious fiscal discipline, you are in for a disappointment.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's heralded budget plan would, according to Cato Institute analyst Christopher Preble, leave the Pentagon "essentially unscathed." Michele Bachmann wrote recently, "Blaming our budgetary woes on the military is reckless and misinformed."

[ex-snook]

"The military does what it's ordered to do by the civilian government and under what rules of engagement it has to operate."

That is true. But both the Bush and Obama administrations have sought military advice before making decisions. I would figure the military would have told them how to win. I'm sure Eisenhower and MacArthur told Roosevelt what they needed to win and he agreed. There is no sense to stay in wars we do not want to win.

[Doe Eyes]

Do you believe it’s reasoned to take the military budget in a time of war and use that as your baseline for the military slice of the pie?

I was responding to your statement, "Defense DOES NOT equal 20% of the budget either". Nothing more.

[Doe Eyes]

I think that pie chart is rather “clever” in that it separates Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid...making each look like “less” of the pie, but combined they equal 40% of all spending.

Did you know that Federal Income Taxes make up 41.6% of Federal Revenue in 2010, while taxes for Social Security and Medicare made up 40%?

Federal Revenues by Source

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

Link-a-dink-dink

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

“As a matter of fact, the manufacturer likes all those requirements because profit is a percentage of costs.”

Truth.

In Pharmaceuticals it’s even worse. They adore FDA requirements.

[MontaniSemperLiberi]

Great Chart.

Note that interest on the debt is 4.63%. That is the interest when the Fed and the Chinese are buying our debt at 2.5%. When (not if) interest rates go to their historic norm of about 7.5%, that cut of the total budget goes from 4.63% to over 13%. Then our debt goes up geometrically and then we go Greek.

God help us.

[Doe Eyes]

Then our debt goes up geometrically and then we go Greek.

You remember the "crazy" man that ran for President many years back saying, "you don't finance long term debt at short term rates". Ross Perot would have fixed this long ago.

[DoughtyOne]

I know you think you scored here, but cutting a war-time budget would leave a woefully inadequate peace-time budget. The military DOES NOT make up 20% of a non-wartime budget.

This is the kind of logic and game-playing that costs us F22 and F35 programs. It cost us half our Navy and many U.S. Military bases.

It might also be of interest to note that the total budget for the FBI was included in that military budget.

I don’t blame you for not addressing more than those figures, because those figures are bogus and misrepresentative for purposes of this discussion.

[Doe Eyes]

I know you think you scored here

I don't have any idea what you are talking about. Please post a quote from me that in any way back up the lies you are posting here.

[DoughtyOne]

Please quote a lie from me.

[Doe Eyes]

Please quote a lie from me.

"I know you think you scored here, but cutting a war-time budget would leave a woefully inadequate peace-time budget."

I never suggested cutting the defense budget.

[Doe Eyes]

Please quote a lie from me.

"This is the kind of logic and game-playing that costs us F22 and F35 programs. It cost us half our Navy and many U.S. Military bases."

What logic are you attributing to me?

[donmeaker]

I will agree to stop fighting the overseas wars if our enemy will also agree to stop fighting.

If he doesn’t agree, I don’t think we can stop fighting. Rather, we have to have a clever plan on how to continue fighting effectively, using our strengths against enemy weaknesses.

Pres Bush did a great thing, using our strengths against the terrorists in Iraq, and sucking in terrorists all over the world where they could be identified by Iraqi allies, processed by US intelligence, and killed by US firepower.

Iraq as Flypaper. Thanks to our success on that campaign, Saddam was hanged, Libya agreed to fork over its (and Iraq’s) nuclear program. Iran, sandwiched between Iraq and Afghanistan mothballed its nuclear program.
‘

[donmeaker]

Of course what would happen is the government would collect the tax, then siphon off the money for other things. Like they did for Social Security, and DEFENSE!

[donmeaker]

Whose G-d?

[DoughtyOne]

Please quote a lie from me.

"I know you think you scored here, but cutting a war-time budget would leave a woefully inadequate peace-time budget."

I never suggested cutting the defense budget.

Please quote a lie from me.

"This is the kind of logic and game-playing that costs us F22 and F35 programs. It cost us half our Navy and many U.S. Military bases."

What logic are you attributing to me?

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It's unfortunate, but the discussions here take on an adversarial aspect so often that I have to try to discern what the posters are trying to say, when they don't come right out and say it.  I'll explain why I took your post to mean that you supported the writer's premise in the article that started the thread.
In your first post to me, you provided a graph depicting the military budget was 18.74% of the overall budget.  You quoted my comment regarding the initial post on the thread, "Defense DOES NOT equal 20% of the budget", and then stated, "He (the writer of that article) said roughly a fifth of the budget. 18.74% is close enough."  You didn't just provide the information.  You also provided an evaluation, a defense (of the writer) of sorts.  This lead me to believe you were in support of his positions.  What other conclusion would be reasonable?

I did some research and came up with a graph showing the military spending was almost exactly 20%.  I did however explain that this was a wartime budget, and that normal military spending is less than this, a smaller percentage.  I also mentioned that the complete FBI budget was included in the figures I found.

From my point of view it seemed as if you were trying to prove my post wrong, where I stated military spending wasn't 20%.  You having provided that information, it seemed like you were taking the side of the writer, defending his estimate of our military spending.  And quite naturally, I responded as if your take on things were similar to his.

Sorry, I have gone round and round here with folks who think our military should be cut considerably.  Many of them start out with short comments intended to prove you wrong without being confrontational.  When you begin to discuss the matter with them, this whole long ideology unfolds.

Here's a question from my initial post to you.  I don't think it's out of line, but look at your response.  It was giving you a chance to clairify your position.  You could easily have explained that you didn't think your numbers were quite as solid as you first did.  We would have dropped the whole thing right there.  Instead you refused to respond, after re-posting the question.

Do you believe it’s reasoned to take the military budget in a time of war and use that as your baseline for the military slice of the pie?

I was responding to your statement, "Defense DOES NOT equal 20% of the budget either". Nothing more.

Look at that.  You provide a graph that depicts our military spending to be 18.74% of the entire budget, and say that is close enough to prove the writer right.  Then when I point out that this is a war-time budget, you suddenly claim to only be providing information, and not interested in making any other comments.  That's funny, because earlier you had been willing to comment that the 18.74% was close enough, when it backed the writer.  Now that it might not actually back up the writer's premise, you don't want to talk about it.

Okay, so I responded with this:

<>I know you think you scored here, but cutting a war-time budget would leave a woefully inadequate peace-time budget. The military DOES NOT make up 20% of a non-wartime budget.
This is the kind of logic and game-playing that costs us F22 and F35 programs. It cost us half our Navy and many U.S. Military bases.
It might also be of interest to note that the total budget for the FBI was included in that military budget.
I don’t blame you for not addressing more than those figures, because those figures are bogus and misrepresentative for purposes of this discussion.  (And they were)

Was it reasonale for me to make these comments?  Yes.

You refused to be candid about what the numbers you provided actually meant.  How was I supposed to react to that other than to take you to be hostile to my point of view?

Did I state here that you actually backed anything?  Well actually no.  I merely mentioned what the thinking of people who disagreed with me normally wound up costing us.

Then you responded saying I was lying about you.  No, actually I wasn't.

In the future, you may wish to think twice before entering a thread to prove someone wrong, if you're not willing to discuss what the information you provide actually means.

As for the moron who wrote this article, he spend quite a bit of time saying very little in order to post stats that support the notion that military spending is out of control.

And while you didn't actually back him on that point, you were pleased as punch to back some of his underlying claims, specifically the percentage of the full budget, that the military makes up.

Well, it isn't one-fifth of the budget.  Sorry to ruin your day.  Nice try.

[gogogodzilla]

If you want to win a war, you have to fight to win a war. What we are doing in Afghanistan is a holding action. For every village we ‘liberate’... we then leave, and the enemy ‘retakes’ it.

If we aren’t going to seriously plus-up the number of military personnel in our armed forces to the level necessary to occupy each and every town and village in Afghanistan... then we need to consider reducing the number of towns and villages to the level that accomodates permanent garrisons of military personnel.

And doing anything like that is now considered a ‘war crime’. Relocation = ethnic cleansing = war crime. So we are now bound to a failed set of rules in this.

So, since we ain’t fighting to win, why bother fighting at all? It just exhausts our treasury and our troops, making us vulnerable to our enemies when the time comes.

(And as an aside, smart weaponry was one of the biggest mistakes we ever made. For it shields our enemy’s citizenry from the horror of war. And as long as they don’t experience the horror of war, they will continue to support armed resistance after we win. In other words, the enemy is not their military, it is their citizenry. Get the citizenry to give up their support for war, and their armed forces stop fighting.)

[Paperdoll]

There is only one True God, my firend.

[donmeaker]

And his name is: Jupiter, Zeus-Pater, G-d the Father, Erlik, Crom, Yahweh, Jehovah,...