FTFA:

Well, for starters, if we accept for argument's sake that the Social Security System is running at a deficit and will eventually be defunded (which, by the way, I do not for a minute believe), actuaries say that injecting about $130 billion a year into the fund (the equivalent of increasing everyone's SSI payroll tax by 2 percent) would solve the alleged problem indefinitely, allowing all current and future Americans to count on an inflation-adjusted secure retirement forever.

I stopped reading right there. I could have stopped much earlier, but as soon as someone says "Social security = secure retirement" they've lost ALL credibility. Even the Social Security Administration says that Social Security isn't to be used as your retirement plan.

I don't mind paying for the military, I DO mind paying for all sorts of stuff (like Social Security) that the federal government shouldn't be paying for.

....and future Americans to count on an inflation-adjusted secure retirement forever.

Not to mention living on borscht for the rest of our lives.

colovion: I don't mind paying for the military, I DO mind paying for all sorts of stuff (like Social Security) that the federal government shouldn't be paying for.

Doesn't make his argument invalid. You could substitute almost anything else in there.

Dogs and cats would live together, mass hysteria!

what kinda tree hugging, dirt eating hippie talk is this shiat?

In short, Mongol hordes would amass on our borders, and America would cease to exist in 50-60 years time. We'd also lose our first world status in 20-30 years.

queezyweezel: We'd also lose our first world status in 20-30 years.

this is unpossible.

from http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm:

Four Worlds
After World War II the world split into two large geopolitical blocs and spheres of influence with contrary views on government and the politically correct society:
1 - The bloc of democratic-industrial countries within the American influence sphere, the "First World".
2 - The Eastern bloc of the communist-socialist states, the "Second World".
3 - The remaining three-quarters of the world's population, states not aligned with either bloc were regarded as the "Third World."
4 - The term "Fourth World", coined in the early 1970s by Shuswap Chief George Manuel, refers to widely unknown nations (cultural entities) of indigenous peoples, "First Nations" living within or across national state boundaries.

Whenever I get into a political debate with "small government" [Republicans], I like to toss this idea out at them. Bring them all home with exception for three or four strategic bases out in the middle of the oceans on US and UK soil (Guam, American Samoa, Diego Garcia, Falkland Islands). So far, not a single one has sided with the argument.

The US armed forces really has become a sort of welfare for this country. The amount of pork that goes to arms and vehicle manufacturers is disgusting. Same goes for overseas operations. Why is the US building a new base in Poland? Doesn't Europe have the EU and NATO as a means to keep former Soviet states in check? Heck, don't get me started on the money we spend keeping South Korea safe from the north. Last I checked, the South does not compensate us for being world police.



queezyweezel: In short, Mongol hordes Russians and Cubans would amass on our [southern] borders, and America would cease to exist in 50-60 years time. We'd also lose our first world status in 20-30 years.



These two would like a word with you. ;)

We could build a giant dome over the country.

What if...

...we would have spent over $1,000,000,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars elsewhere?

( forgot this )

What if the US packed up and left Iraq and Afghanistan and brought the troops all home, shut down the 750-odd bases around the globe, and slashed our military budget by 75%?

Before I answer, do we still get to remain the world's largest arms dealer?

hell, i'm for cutting the military down, but even i think this is a bad idea.

Personally, I wouldn't have broken my heart to have been laid off for peace, rather than to have instead fought in a war or two or three ...

/All we are saying ...
//Is give peace a chance.

Boy, you think the US is held in poor esteem now......

If we pulled all our troops home, you wouldn't be able to sleep for all the screaming from the whole world.

green?

wait, lemme get my suit.

GoDeep: ....and future Americans to count on an inflation-adjusted secure retirement forever.

Not to mention living on borscht for the rest of our lives.
Mmmmmmm....sweet, nourishing, borscht!!

World Peace?

No.

But at least it wouldn't be our fault any more.

Imagine how smart American Children would be if we spent as much on education like we did on defense. Case in point: Future Weaspons (new window)

I'm sorry..Future Weapons

Then there's healthcare, on which the government spends a paltry $52 billion, leaving us with declining life expectancies and infant mortality rates, particularly among our poorest citizens, that are a scandal.

Let's see...

2006 Medicare spending: $374 billion
2007 Medicaid spending: $171 billion (federal share only)
VA benefits, S-CHIP, various other: at least another $50 billion

Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and say this guy has no idea what he's talking about.

Until I hear political candidates start talking about slashing military spending-and I mean on the order of 75 percent, none of this nickel-and-dime stuff, and about funding the things that really need funding-I'm not even listening to these moronic campaigns.

Um, has this guy not heard about Ron Paul?

750 pfff...
If there were an honest count, the actual size of our military empire would probably top 1,000 different bases in other people's countries, but no one -- possibly not even the Pentagon -- knows the exact number for sure, although it has been distinctly on the rise in recent years.

To hell with the rest of the world! We could use that money fixing problems here at home.

Never happen. Not that we shouldn't cut our military budget by some amount (I have no idea what's optimal, but I think I know "too farking much" when I see it), but the scenario in TFA is pretty over the top.

Jon Snow: What if the US packed up and left Iraq and Afghanistan and brought the troops all home, shut down the 750-odd bases around the globe, and slashed our military budget by 75%?

Before I answer, do we still get to remain the world's largest arms dealer?

That's actually a place of honor occupied by Russia now. France superseded the U.S. a little over a year ago if memory serves, and Russia then passed the French sometime in October.

So in terms of Third-World Arms dealing, the Russians took Gold, the French took Silver, the U.S. took Bronze and the U.K. snagged the honorable mention. Link

Seems like a pretty easy choice to me. If we spend it on Social Security or Medicaid all we'll get for our trouble is lame, pointless things like food and shelter and medicine for American citizens. But if we spend it on the military we'll get lots of totally awesome bombs and tanks and guns we can use to kill and maim people on the far side of the world.

Personally I think we should increase the defense budget. Spending money to assist American citizens is a waste of resources - after all, we have a much more pressing need to produce larger explosions in countries most of our population can't even find on a map.

potee: Jon Snow: What if the US packed up and left Iraq and Afghanistan and brought the troops all home, shut down the 750-odd bases around the globe, and slashed our military budget by 75%?

Before I answer, do we still get to remain the world's largest arms dealer?

That's actually a place of honor occupied by Russia now. France superseded the U.S. a little over a year ago if memory serves, and Russia then passed the French sometime in October.

So in terms of Third-World Arms dealing, the Russians took Gold, the French took Silver, the U.S. took Bronze and the U.K. snagged the honorable mention. Link

I bet we coulda won if a lot of them weren't going to be pointed at us.

end the war? what do you want, a US economic collapse?

colovion: FTFA:

Well, for starters, if we accept for argument's sake that the Social Security System is running at a deficit and will eventually be defunded (which, by the way, I do not for a minute believe), actuaries say that injecting about $130 billion a year into the fund (the equivalent of increasing everyone's SSI payroll tax by 2 percent) would solve the alleged problem indefinitely, allowing all current and future Americans to count on an inflation-adjusted secure retirement forever.

I stopped reading right there. I could have stopped much earlier, but as soon as someone says "Social security = secure retirement" they've lost ALL credibility. Even the Social Security Administration says that Social Security isn't to be used as your retirement plan.

I don't mind paying for the military, I DO mind paying for all sorts of stuff (like Social Security) that the federal government shouldn't be paying for.

Great theory. Hasn't worked well in practis. Most countries that try that end up spending much more in emergincy care, crime, and the like.

real shaman: Boy, you think the US is held in poor esteem now......

If we pulled all our troops home, you wouldn't be able to sleep for all the screaming from the whole world.

We could at least shut down bases in Europe, those Euro-weenies are capable of defending themselves.

/when hell freezes over...

you know this is exactly what america needs. to defund national defense to increase the power of the welfare state. soup kitchen economics will carry the day yet!

Guy who wrote this article seemed to forget to fix the deficit and balance the budget.

And tax breaks would be nice.

potee: Jon Snow: What if the US packed up and left Iraq and Afghanistan and brought the troops all home, shut down the 750-odd bases around the globe, and slashed our military budget by 75%?

Before I answer, do we still get to remain the world's largest arms dealer?

That's actually a place of honor occupied by Russia now. France superseded the U.S. a little over a year ago if memory serves, and Russia then passed the French sometime in October.

So in terms of Third-World Arms dealing, the Russians took Gold, the French took Silver, the U.S. took Bronze and the U.K. snagged the honorable mention. Link

c'mon now, you know very well the world's largest arms dealer title isn't based in reality anyway but is just a rhetorical bludgeon.

whiskeyinthejar: But if we spend it on the military we'll get lots of totally awesome bombs and tanks and guns we can use to kill and maim people on the far side of the world.

Not really. DARPA research is separate from other line items within the DOD's budget. You can continue to fund research into scramjet technology and gigawatt laser beams, however, you can't have tens of thousands of them when they are ready for production. Just a few.

I don't see a need to make cuts in the military. However, if we ignored Iraq, we would already be finished up in Afghanistan, we'd have a better global reputation, and we'd have a smaller national debt. Also, we'd still get the monthly report of Saddam flying his planes into a "No Fly Zone." That'd be the extent of the trouble Iraq would be causing.

FTA: our huge and useless strategic nuclear program

Work out what would happen to unemployment, it would not be pretty. Not only would you find actual military people out of work, bad, you'd find various civilian support people out of work, also bad.

This guy could have proposed flushing this money down the toilet, and it still would have been better spent than attacking Iraq. If Neocons had any gall, they'd know better than to open their mouths about spending priorities for a long time.

The military and political collapse of American-aligned states and other friendly regimes meant that any American investments or loans to these two entities were irrecoverably lost. Increasing Chinese dominance over world trade ensured that America was progressively forced out of markets in Europe, Africa, Asia and even parts of South America. A slow but inexorable economic decline ensued, followed by an increasingly vicious social conflict.

aeai: you know this is exactly what america needs. to defund national defense to increase the power of the welfare state. soup kitchen economics will carry the day yet!

Using your logic, then there wouldn't be a welfare state if it was paid for. In fact, if this could actually work, most people would be working for sheer disposable income.

yawn
I wonder, what would all those out of work military people do?
What would the industry which supports them do?

talk about a great depression

WhyteRaven74: Work out what would happen to unemployment, it would not be pretty. Not only would you find actual military people out of work, bad, you'd find various civilian support people out of work, also bad.

why do you knuckleheads turn into keynesians only when it comes to the military? Unprincipled idiots living in a confused double standard world of denial. You realize the military industry is a racket but you lack the fortitude to deal with it. However, everyone else can eat cake. Just such a farked up way to look at the world.

Phil Moskowitz

"why do you knuckleheads turn into keynesians only when it comes to the military? Unprincipled idiots living in a confused double standard world of denial. You realize the military industry is a racket but you lack the fortitude to deal with it. However, everyone else can eat cake. Just such a farked up way to look at the world"

um, mass firings of any kind really suck. The big difference between military folks and civilians is a lot of military jobs dont translate into the civilian world. What does an 11 year career gunnery seargant do? Work at starbucks?

Phil Moskowitz: why do you knuckleheads turn into keynesians only when it comes to the military?

Pssst, I'm just going with reality, that a lot of people would be out of work, more people than could easily be taken up by the labor market. And I'm not a Keynsian or a moneterist either. I have no problem with the military per se, but I'm not thrilled with how many people regard the poor, unschooled etc either. But I'm not about to engage in false dichotomies in regards to anything. It's like saying NASA money could be better spent on other things, ie it's fund NASA or something else, when indeed you can fund both. Now, paying farmers to not farm and inflating prices by way of subsidies? That gets my hackles up.

Someone else would have to do it, and then when we decided things were being handled badly, we'd have neither the control to fix it ourselves (it being our mess) nor the influence to pressure someone else into fixing it.

Good to see the isolationist stupidity hasn't died out yet, gives me faith in the durability of human institutions in general. Interesting that it's feeding off of the hippie side instead of the "we shouldn't care about anyone else in the world" side this time, but otherwise the 1880s called, they want their protest ideology back.

We could amuse ourselves as the world went to absolute hell in a hand basket all while it whined and cried and screamed about the mean United States not helping.

nobozo: What if...

...we would have spent over $1,000,000,000,000,000 (trillion) dollars elsewhere?

One trillion dollars could buy a lot of bling
One trillion dollars could buy most anything
One trillion dollars buying bullets, buying guns
One trillion dollars in the hands of killers, thugs

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
fark the world, a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh
fark the world,
fark 'em all

One trillion dollars to Africa, Iraq
One trillion dollars and it's never coming back
One trillion dollars could buy some bad-ass drugs
One trillion dollars makes me wanna kill myself

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
fark the world, a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh
fark the world, yeah, yeah
fark 'em all

Until the sun burns from the sky
Until the sun burns so bright this world is no more
Sun burns from the sky...
And all the people are just dust on the ground

One trillion dollars could buy a heart, a soul
One trillion dollars buying nations - all the world
One trillion dollars could make the fat lady sing
One trillion dollars, what a bullshiat useless thing

Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
fark the world, a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
fark the world, a lot of people gotta die tonight
Woah-oh-oh woah-oh woah-oh-oh-oh
shiat loads of money spent will show us wrong from right
fark the world
fark 'em all

Here's a brilliant idea, cut taxes with the savings, why do we have to have somebody else spend our money? I can think of a million ways I could better my life with an extra $200/mo.

ClicheGuevara07: Emo shiat song.

Or we could ... not spend the money we don't have in the first place. Armaments at least have a useful purpose.