Our military budget is beyond ridiculous and one of the biggest waste of money are our own contractors. We've watched them charge the govt $1500 for a $10 bearing and the list of contractors has continued to shrink with a long list of acquisitions that have killed all competition. I can't imagine what this country could be if we spend half of that budget on education and modern infrastructure.
did they fuck up and send you a rhodium one by mistake or was it just billed that way
It's just par for the course. There's a reason low level commands prefer to buy things off the shelf if they can.
The US military budget is designed to independently fight and win another two-theater war in Europe and Asia. Has been since WWII. I think it would be justifiable to shrink the Europe portion of that; Russia's military capabilities are awful by this point, and Ukraine has done an excellent job demonstrating you don't need the kind of budget the US would expect to at least hold on that front.
Doubtless they’re worried about the rest of us getting ideas above our station.
Billions for Ukraine? No debate, full send. Billions for Israel? No debate, full send. Billions for healthcare? Whoa whoa whoa, gotta balance that budget!
Edit: if you prefer, forget I said healthcare and substitute in anything else that would help the working class.
Every single time someone brings up anything about cost and the government, ask them how much money the DoD loses every year. Every single time.
see the dod brings in money because of pineapples and crack
Extra spending on health care is not actually required (even though america could afford it). Americans spent more per capita on health care than anyone else already. American health spending is extremely inefficient, with parasites like for-profit insurance (whose profits and much of their revenue are literally just inefficiency in the system) embedded at every layer. The problem is that allowing it to get to this state means many of these bad actors will gladly spend hundreds of millions on politicians and ads to defend the billions they make, and American voters are easily confused.
If you call profits a bad thing too many times you get called a communist or whatever even though in this case it's objectively true. The shooting of that parasite CEO should have brought this into focus - that worthless person profited directly from making people's health care expenditures less efficient (and also from the corresponding human suffering in case anyone cares).
I agree with all of that. Almost wish I hadn't used healthcare as an example since there's plenty of other programs that suffer from low funding.
the US already allocates $1.5 trillion for direct healthcare spending
If you don't like healthcare as an example, choose anything else that helps the working class. I don't just mean adding new money either, but how eager they are to make cuts to existing programs.
Defund the police and military.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I think "Defund" is a bit drastic given the current state of the world, but it is possible that we don't need to maintain 11 aircraft carriers, in the same way that every small town Pennsylvania Police department doesn't need their very own armored personnel carrier. Moderation in all things.
The problem is we maintain half of them forward deployed in roughly 3 areas at any one time.
But yeah that's why our military is so expensive. If it wasn't constantly forward deployed it would be much cheaper.
We really should be working with our allies to get their own military in the area. Mainly in Europe. If I'm being realistic, we probably will never leave Asia.
Defund is the only slogan that has had actual sticking power though. To have nuance on this topic and have it actually matter, you would have to create a new slogan on the same level. Otherwise you're just armchair politicking from the internet same as everyone else
Now, with that out of the way, defund is still a good slogan. The primary reason is if we defund the police then we can create something that is not called police that isn't beholden to all of the laws and regulations and the corrupt unions that perpetuate the current systemic problems
Defund as a slogan is about cutting past the red tape of reform and starting from scratch to build something systemically better
"Don't defund them, just reduce the amount of funds they can spend aircradt carriers and remove the funds for armored vehicles."
Is ripping more or less severe than slamming someone?
More. Rips bleed, slams bruise.
“I think it’s time to tell the military-industrial complex they cannot get everything they want"
is he talking about active servicepeople because we've been there since forever
Of course not, active servicepeople are just another currency to the military-industrial complex.
MIC is the private companies that supply/support the military and profit from it. Everything from fuel to uniforms to electrical wiring in the bases.
so, like also the schools that are on base too? because the janitor at the school on the base near me fell through their ancient roof a few weeks ago. like, I'm not so sure they've been getting everything they want
Nobody said the MIC's product was good quality or well maintained. In fact the more they can charge for the less they can do means more profit. And if working class people die because of it then oh well.
Unpopular opinion on Lemmy... but I am against Mitch and Sanders here.
We need to cut the military, tell them to do better with what they have or else. More or less keep the social aid budget where it is while trying to reign in healthcare profiteering, and pay back some debt before the next crisis.
Oh, and tax the shit out of billionaires.
We are quickly approaching the point where a large fraction of the federal budget is interest payments, and I'm sure many here know how being trapped in an interest/debt spiral feels.
You know that more social aid is cheaper, right? Keeping people afloat benefits everyone and the numbers for it are very outdated. Plus social aid pretty much always makes its way back to the government, assuming we also heavily tax the rich, since it’s money that bolster the economy and that can actually be taken from income tax because people, ya know, have a decent income.
Social aid is a positive ROI, it would be foolish to not include that investment if you were trying to strengthen your country.
It helps the economy, but I don't agree that it efficiently percolates back up into the federal budget.
Yes, we need a lot more, and we can afford some new programs, but we've waited too long for Bernie's sweeping vision to be implemented this second. If the US budget doesn't go net positive, like right now, interest hell is going to wipe out any gains and siphon money straight to who holds that debt: the mega rich.
Deficits aren’t inherently bad, governments are supposed to turn a profit the same way a corporation is. It’s counter-intuitive, yes, but investments will help build a strong foundation now so that the other changes will be able to get a secure footing. It’s also important to know that the money is not direct. You give someone free medication so they can keep their job and you save not having to deal with all the issues that come from their homelessness. Easing poverty is the best weapon against crime, too, which saves on police budgets(in a world where we’re into doing the right thing, of course).
In your plan you already say we should tax the rich, so if we’re going to dream why not dream all the way? Why expect taxing the rich to be so easy but creating social programs from those hundreds of billions of dollars to be so difficult it has to wait?
In your plan you already say we should tax the rich, so if we’re going to dream why not dream all the way?
Because everyone would still be screwed if we don't pay off some debt very soon. What good is a massive social program if it has to be cut the next election cycle anyway?
Deficits aren’t inherently bad
I don't agree with this at all, not anymore. Some debt and deficit is fine, but the US is at the point of unsustainability. Things are on fire. It is too late.
Again the social projects has a positive return on investment. Literally they would help get things back on track faster and with the ultra rich being taxed properly, as in your suggestion, the money wouldn’t be able to be horded in the wrong place. It’s like, every dollar put into the IRS gives back more than it took but are you saying that we shouldn’t fund them? This doesn’t make any sense unless-
Ok, so the U.S. isn’t 20min from utter economic collapse. The plans that the new government is looking to implement are definitely going to speed up the decline but if everything shaped up in the next few months and stayed that way social aid would be a no-brainer good idea. I get that you’re afraid but if a what you outlined happened then there would absolutely be room to lift up the poor and in need. If you simply don’t value social programs then just say it because agree or not the facts don’t support what you’re asking for.
I'm not arguing against you at all. I'm trying to understand your logic because it seems important to understand. Can you provide numbers and sources that show we are at the point of unsustainability? Is government interest about to match revenue so that we are near being unable to pay it? Or is there another reason we're at the point?
Because interest payments are already a big fraction of the budget! I only became aware of this reading this, which pegs it at 8-10%: https://www.axios.com/2024/11/16/elon-musk-trump-department-government-efficiency
Other sources have it at 13%! https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/
Which equates to about $1 trillion a year, and rapidly rising: https://www.pgpf.org/article/what-is-the-national-debt-costing-us/
This is apocalyptic to me for two reasons:
Not only is our interest exceeding what we pay for Medicaid… it’s exceeding the 1T deficit itself. Think about that… we’re paying more in interest than we’re borrowing every year, and we’re borrowing to pay on that interest.
And that is going to compound. The chart above is a pre-Covid estimate, interest of that magnitude is going to rapidly dominate the budget.
Government debt is a lot more like business debt than personal debt though. Japan is in like 200% debt and they’re still chugging along
We need to cut the military, tell them to do better with what they have or else.
This is a popular opinion in China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
And it kinda works in the field, right?
Look how much "low budget innovation" happened in Ukraine. Look at Iran and Russia adopting cheap drone warfare as a response.
Yeah that's not gonna happen with this government, especially with this incoming administration. You're totally right though.
I kind of agree, but also think it's important to understand a few things about this:
I'm not saying that I agree to the spending or that we shouldn't spend more on social welfare, but the solution is not obviously clear as just spending less on defense in my opinion.
God damn Bernie just dust yourself away.
You've done enough damage to this country to court your ego.
Care to elaborate?
Welcome to !usa@midwest.social, where you can share and converse about the different things happening all over/about the United States.
If you’re interested in participating, please subscribe.
Rules
Be respectful and civil. No racism/bigotry/hateful speech.
Post anything related to the United States.