Cut The Fucking Military Budget In Half

[ThomWV]

Cut the military budget (black side and bright side) in half. Get out of Iraq now, and I mean right now no matter what shape it leaves the country. Enough said about Iraq.

Take the unspent military funds and devote them to domestic issues. The result? We would have the strongest and most highly funded military in the world, capable of defending American interests anywhere on the globe and the economy would surge. New construction jobs in infrastructure repair, not improvement, alone would set this country in the economic land of plenty, and those would be jobs easily screened for the legality of the workforce and highly desirable because of Davis Bacon.

Tell me why this could not be done. I respond to the immediate argument that a corresponding job loss will occur in the defense sector. I doubt that will be the case. The military is not going to go without its toys. What the military will go without first is those services no being provided by high priced contractors. That means GI's will once again have to do KP and wax barrack floors.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. because of profits, campaign contributions & jobs

See "why we fight":
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/

[kentuck]

2. That would be a good start...

I think...

[DS1]

3. leave enlisted salaries, base housing, medical services, and

training alone and I'll go along with it :-)

[blondeatlast]

7. Good point. As someone pointed out in another thread, if our

military wasn't quality, we'd be way more fucked than we already are in Iraq.

Perhaps we can start by cutting the salaries of those who've sent our military overseas without ever having been in the midst of real combat.

If some of the top brass (toppest brass the obvious exception) hadn't been grunts in the quagmore of Viet Nam, we'd be done for for sure.

[DS1]

13. I LOVE that idea...

If you send someone to war, as a legislater or president, and haven't seen it yourself, your salary is immediately sliced by 40% AND you have to pay for your own health insurance

nevermind, SO and I have had a discussion over this, and there's all sorts of further problems this would create

[killbotfactory]

4. Defense contractors buy our government like it's candy

They would never allow it, and they constantly push for military adventures.

See: Cunningham.

[DS1]

17. Which is why we have crap like the M16

instead of really engineered to last weaponry like what H-K produces.

And I know the M16 is a capable rifle, I've shot groups the size of coffee cans from 500 yards, but that was in almost clinical conditions next to combat. I'd be hard-pressed to choose it over an HK91 if given the choice

[FrannyD]

5. Can't be done

Because Carlyle and Halliburton don't farm or build schools. They make weapons, and defense shit, so who's gonna question. Can we truly say how much a rocket should cost? We do know how much an apple cost, so they couldn't pull the wool over our eyes so easily. Notice when Halliburton was over charging for oil, and it was this whole story, 'cause we know it's not supposed to be that much, but the reality is they overcharge way more on the shit we don't believe me.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

6. no, first leave Iraq, THEN cut it in half.

Start with Anti-missile missile systems that are little more than heroin for Lockheed and Boeing.
Then, should any retired general or admiral join a corporation and/or a lobbying company, take away all retirement bennies, bar them from every stepping foot within washington, virginia or within 100 yrs of any congressman or senator. If they break those bans, throw them in jail.

Cut NSA's budget by 2/3ds
Cut CIA to 1/5th. They are so ineffectual that they really don't need the money, anyway. They missed the cold war, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Greece, Italy, USSR, the Berlin Wall, Al Qaida, India's nukes. North korea's nukes. China's growing power,
heck, they pretty much missed everything of importance. When they do try to do things, they screw it up royally, usually by picking the wrong side.

Restart USAID and student exchanges.
Cut all bullshit from AIDS $$$ to africa.

Fire Rumsfeld, put in jail, pending war crime and torture charges. Give him the same access to counsel as the people in gitmo get. In fact, put him in gitmo.

[teryang]

8. Agreed

...with no qualifications. This has been the problem all along.

Without the prop of a cold war brush war economy, the so called "free enterprise" hypocrites will have to figure out how to compete in the real world marketplace the rest of us have to live in.

[Ksec]

9. Im in.

You could easily do this by doing away with the multi billion dollars projects that never seem to get done.

And if you dumped the big ticket star wars garbage items, you could actually buy the soldiers the shit they needed.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. Yep. And end the drug war, while we're at it. Stop blowing $$$ on B.S.

And start re-building our country-- and funding things like a Single Payer Health Care system.

[Muddy Waters Guitar]

11. A smart proposal

It's our ridiculous, bloated military budget that's pushing us irretrievably into the red-- trillions of dollars in debt. We can't afford it. We spend billions on war jets that don't work, "prestige" battleships, high tech gadgets while we're being beaten by a low-tech insurgency of a few thousand guerrillas in Iraq. We spend tens of billions on over 10,000 nuclear weapons-- how wasteful could we possibly be?

The one Republican President from the 20th century that I thoroughly admire, is Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was the one who warned us of the enormous danger of the military-industrial complex, and he was right. Too bad his warning has gone unheeded.

[Ksec]

12. Just look at the cost of the new fighters..

BILLIONS.

Now tell me. How can a vehicle the size of a SUV, cost that much ? I know its expensive to engineer new aircraft, but gimme a frickin break. They get rid of effective aircraft like the A10 Warthog, which won the gulf war singlehandedly and was relatively cheap to build and maintain, and develop some fragile ,high tech fighter that breaks down every hour. The new one has been nothing but problems (cant recall its name) and its uses are so narrow it makes it barely worth it. We dont need billion dollar fighters to fight the new guerilla wars that are sure to come. You need simple weaponry .

[Yupster]

18. Prestige battleships?

I don't think there's a single battleship currently in the US Navy.

The last one built was in 1944 and the last one used was the Wisconsin that Reagan had refitted but was decommissioned again I think right before Clinton was elected.

[Balbus]

14. As opposed to the non-fucking military budget?

What was the necessity for that adjective?

[SammyWinstonJack]

15. The Military Industrial Complex would be pissed! nt

[Sarah Ibarruri]

16. That needs to be done asap! nt

[chicofaraby]

19. How many trillions spent on "defense" since Pearl Harbor?

The one time the nation was attacked, all of that money failed to defend us.

The REAL defense that the USA has is it's insane nuclear capability. The military could defend our borders with 1/4 of it's current size if it's job were actually "defense" instead of spreading global domination.