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Over 40% of world military spending, is just the United States.
Our nearest possible competitor in that, would be China, and they are only 6% roughly.
The latest numbers I've seen for 2009 and 2010 shows the United States at over 50% of world military spending.
So, do you support decreasing our military spending? The Tea Party, in a recent poll, said they don't want to cut spending on medicare and social security, which are our largest expenses. However, the military runs between 22% of GDP, and 50% of GDP. (depends on your source)
Seeing as we are spending more than 4 times our nearest competitor, and if you look at our allies (France and the UK), we spend well over that.
If we are serious about balancing the budget, why not decrease the size of the military, and our military spending. I'd feel safe with spending twice as much as China, wouldn't you?
Now, we are currently in a state of war, so we need our current size. However, once the wars are over, its my opinion that we should cut the size of the standing army, in half. Stay on top of R&D, but lower our militarys overall size.
We have more General Officers now than when we had 13 million men in uniform, most are Politicians and Lobbyists. Get rid of half and many of these bogus weapons systems the contractors keep selling Congress
Over 40% of world military spending, is just the United States.
Our nearest possible competitor in that, would be China, and they are only 6% roughly.
The latest numbers I've seen for 2009 and 2010 shows the United States at over 50% of world military spending.
So, do you support decreasing our military spending? The Tea Party, in a recent poll, said they don't want to cut spending on medicare and social security, which are our largest expenses. However, the military runs between 22% of GDP, and 50% of GDP. (depends on your source)
Seeing as we are spending more than 4 times our nearest competitor, and if you look at our allies (France and the UK), we spend well over that.
If we are serious about balancing the budget, why not decrease the size of the military, and our military spending. I'd feel safe with spending twice as much as China, wouldn't you?
Now, we are currently in a state of war, so we need our current size. However, once the wars are over, its my opinion that we should cut the size of the standing army, in half. Stay on top of R&D, but lower our militarys overall size.
Depends on the nature of the cuts. I survived a major cut to the military when I had to go ship to ship begging for spare parts to get our ship running. I don't want to go back to that kind of situation for our military. I'd start by closing foreign bases and bringing those troops back home and station them along our border with Mexico because of the drug gang war overflowing into our nation putting the lives of average citizens, law enforcement, and border patrol agents in danger. Congress would never approve this because members of congress use the excuse of visiting the troops to get a taxpayer paid vacation to Japan, Italy, Spain, Germany, and other countries. I saw this happen first hand. Congressman came on our ship, spoke with the Admiral, took hand shake photos without talking to any enlisted sailors, and spent the rest of his time in Italy on vacation with his family. Another thing that needs to happen is to get Congress out of the war business. I think it was Tom Delay of Mississippi that had a Navy ship built in his home state even though the US Navy said they didn't need the ship. Another problem is Admirals and Generals in the Pentagon who funnel contracts to companies in exchange for a position with the company when they leave the service. Once at the company, they use their security clearance for insider information and back room deals as part of the "good ole boy club". Set a time period like 2 to 5 years before a Pentagon officer can go to work for a company that has or seeks to have Department of Defense contracts. We still have troops stationed in foreign bases from WW2, Korea, and Bosnia/Kosovo. Time to bring them back home.
However, the military runs between 22% of GDP, and 50% of GDP. (depends on your source).
22% of GDP is more than $3 trillion. We actually spend around 5% of GDP on the military, or around 18% of the budget (around $790 billion total for the military).
In order to answer the poll I need some answers.
1. Do we intend to reduce their work load?
2. Do we continue to be used as the main arm of the UN?
3. Do we stop politicians from adding pork to the military budget?
4. Are we going to sacrfice training and equip maintenance to make up for the spending cuts as we did under Clinton?
This proposal is pinching pennies. Get rid of the "I was there" medals. I have several of them. They're in a box under the bed. I didn't do anything to earn these medals other than be on a ship when it was in a particular location. Medals should be issued for individual achievement, not simply for being in the military during a particular conflict or being in a geographical location.
22% of GDP is more than $3 trillion. We actually spend around 5% of GDP on the military, or around 18% of the budget (around $790 billion total for the military).
Yep, 5%, yep.
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