[swpa_mom]

I am more optomistic than ever. NY9 should have taught us all that the media can no longer manipulate the masses with scare tactics.

As long as we don’t defeat ourselves.

[3Fingas]

I know that the Federal government needs to reduce spending, but if it drastically cuts military spending its priorities are very misplaced. Today, military spending represents about %5 of GDP. This is much lower than the approximately 10% of GDP maintained on military spending throughout the 1960s. The real growth areas in spending for the federal government have been non-military entitlements and healthcare costs.

If you believe that the primary function of government is national defense, then I think most people would say we should not significantly cut our spending in this area. Shouldn't we first consider cuts in other less essential parts of government?

The current retirement system is the glue that keeps our current all-volunteer professional army together. If you do a away with it, you had better have something very attractive to replace it or we will lose some of the best and most experienced personnel. This would greatly reduce our military readiness at a time in world history when this would be very dangerous.