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And that’s a bad thing? I want tax cheats to have to pony up.
But those people are unfairly excluded from being able to use "legitimate" means for their transactions. Besides who says that the US government has a legitimate right to any % of your income? People are allowed to opt out if they can get away with it. They never agreed to give up that %.
You think VA is stretching for military spending? That is all obligation for people who are former military employees. Its absolutely part of military spending just as if retiree pension and health benefits would be for any company offering them to their employees. The CIA straddles the line a bit more but they seem to be pretty active in all the active theaters of warfare (including ones most people dont even know are active) so I believe there is a good amount of money from our "intelligence" services that can be allocated to military spending. But between military and VA, you are getting really close to $1 trillion anyway.
I have never suggested that we just sit and wait to be attacked or that the US should act in isolation. You have the fictitious belief that being involved in other nations, building relationships, preventing war, etc. is the purview of the military. Not wanting to kill people in other countries isnt being isolationist. How many other countries in the world spend anywhere near what the US does on the military, has as many aircraft carrier groups (which only serves to make war on weak nations), bases all over etc.? They seem to be surviving but somehow the US who is geographically distant from any potential attackers needs to spend more thna them? Most other countries could have an enemy simply driving vehicles acorss their borders to attack them, how exactly can someone invade the US?
The defense budget is a major part of what is causing budget issues. You could cut $500+ billion from it, would that help with the budget or not? The only reason why you would consider saying such a thing is that you have this desire to view the military budget as untouchable which it shouldnt be.
Counting the VA spending as current military spending is silly - most of that is the result of conflicts from 40+ years ago. It is like counting a divorce settlement payment as a wedding gift. It is absolutely NOT part of the military spending because the military has absolutely no control of the request, the budget or the spending - it does not even go to the DoD. The costs of the VA are not factored into the budget as military spending. The CIA is support more for Executive branch and State Department than Defense. Just because you think it should be does not make it true - lets go with the facts not the "oughta-bes".
You completely did suggest an isolationist policy by saying "The US spends way more than is needed to defend the homeland. Look at how much money has been spending in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya the past decade and none of it had anything to do with protecting the US." - defeating terrorists overseas has every thing to do with protecting the US.
You really don't understand the power of an aircraft carrier group if you say they "only serves to make war on weak nations", - an aircraft carrier is like having an US base anywhere in the world and is more powerful air force by itself than most any other country. If you think they are only for the weak, ask China what they think, they flinch every time one from the US is in the area and are spending about 5% of their total defense budget on one carrier (with less capability) of their own.
Defense is not causing budget issues - it is less than 10% of the federal budget, about 3% of GDP - there are many countries that spend significantly more of their GDP for defense. That 10% of the budget is about the same amount as is spent on ACA - cut ACA and you save a lot immediately. That 3% of GDP spending going towards defense is responsible for over 10% of US manufacturing capability and about 5% of all US wages - not such a bad trade-off. You could not cut $500 B in defense, that is about 2/3 of the budget - you would get people but no new equipment or gas to run the planes, ships, etc. Also, Defense is the one thing listed in the Constitution specifically as the roll of Federal Government.
International payments are almost 6% of the budget and do not provide much in the way of US jobs - seems like a better place to make cuts than defense - also the Biden proposed bill has about 5x the defense budget allocated - seems like also a better place for cuts if needed. You know so little about defense and what is needed that it is not funny.
Counting the VA spending as current military spending is silly - most of that is the result of conflicts from 40+ years ago. It is like counting a divorce settlement payment as a wedding gift. It is absolutely NOT part of the military spending because the military has absolutely no control of the request, the budget or the spending - it does not even go to the DoD. The costs of the VA are not factored into the budget as military spending. The CIA is support more for Executive branch and State Department than Defense. Just because you think it should be does not make it true - lets go with the facts not the "oughta-bes".
You completely did suggest an isolationist policy by saying "The US spends way more than is needed to defend the homeland. Look at how much money has been spending in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya the past decade and none of it had anything to do with protecting the US." - defeating terrorists overseas has every thing to do with protecting the US.
You really don't understand the power of an aircraft carrier group if you say they "only serves to make war on weak nations", - an aircraft carrier is like having an US base anywhere in the world and is more powerful air force by itself than most any other country. If you think they are only for the weak, ask China what they think, they flinch every time one from the US is in the area and are spending about 5% of their total defense budget on one carrier (with less capability) of their own.
Defense is not causing budget issues - it is less than 10% of the federal budget, about 3% of GDP - there are many countries that spend significantly more of their GDP for defense. That 10% of the budget is about the same amount as is spent on ACA - cut ACA and you save a lot immediately. That 3% of GDP spending going towards defense is responsible for over 10% of US manufacturing capability and about 5% of all US wages - not such a bad trade-off. You could not cut $500 B in defense, that is about 2/3 of the budget - you would get people but no new equipment or gas to run the planes, ships, etc. Also, Defense is the one thing listed in the Constitution specifically as the roll of Federal Government.
International payments are almost 6% of the budget and do not provide much in the way of US jobs - seems like a better place to make cuts than defense - also the Biden proposed bill has about 5x the defense budget allocated - seems like also a better place for cuts if needed. You know so little about defense and what is needed that it is not funny.
Its somewhat shocking to take your position of not counting VA spending as current military spending. It is spending on military retirement benefits. If you dont want to count it then dont provide it. Any entity counts is retirement spending as spending. Who could possibly agree with your position on this? No one acting rationally.
I guess we keep repeating ourselves on this point. You think not wanting to murder people in other countries is being isolationist. I think you avoid murder and focus on commerce and diplomacy. For some reason, you only view foreign relations as being through military actions. I think that is the worst possible part of foreign relations and is to be avoided at all costs. I am not really sure what terrorists you are referring to. I am not aware of the US military going after terrorists, just people defending their nations from an outside invader.
The reason why China is bothered is because it is provacation and threats. An advanced military could easily take out aircraft carriers by sending a barrage of missiles at it. In a war with an advanced nation, they are useless. They only have value in a war with a weak nation without advanced missiles.
What other parts of the budget take up more spending than the military? Of course $1 trillion a year causes budget issues. I never said that the government shouldnt provide for the defense of the nation. I said that it can be done while spending a drastically lower amount.
If you are suggesting eliminating foreign aid and many other payments to foreign entities, you will get no argument from me. Military spending is bipartisan, democrats and republicans equally guilty. It is just so much money and pure corruption that it is the gift that keeps giving for politicians.
You completely did suggest an isolationist policy by saying "The US spends way more than is needed to defend the homeland. Look at how much money has been spending in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya the past decade and none of it had anything to do with protecting the US." - defeating terrorists overseas has every thing to do with protecting the US.
If you believe nonsense like that then what's the point of discussing? The terrorists we're (not) defeating are our former allies who we funded, the entire debacle is entirely a function of US interventionist policy. If we didn't have carriers three decades ago, we wouldn't have been able to eff up the Middle East in the first place, there wouldn't have been so many "terrorists" inspired to fight a country on the other side of the globe, and we wouldn't need carriers now to fight losing wars against those terrorists. It's an unsustainable self-propagating ponzi scheme. Reminds me of the East India Trading Company.
Not to mention that the term "terrorist" itself is entirely relative; a simple substitute for "enemy" with fear mongering added for some obfuscating spice.
If you believe nonsense like that then what's the point of discussing? The terrorists we're (not) defeating are our former allies who we funded, the entire debacle is entirely a function of US interventionist policy. If we didn't have carriers three decades ago, we wouldn't have been able to eff up the Middle East in the first place, there wouldn't have been so many "terrorists" inspired to fight a country on the other side of the globe, and we wouldn't need carriers now to fight losing wars against those terrorists. It's an unsustainable self-propagating ponzi scheme. Reminds me of the East India Trading Company.
Not to mention that the term "terrorist" itself is entirely relative; a simple substitute for "enemy" with fear mongering added for some obfuscating spice.
One who pays close attention to the conflicts could only come to the conclusion that the US just makes war for the sake of making war for money. The Iraq Civil war was very fascinating. The US would support and oppose people from month to month. How they identified the groups to us changed depending on if they were on their side or not. When we were cool with them, they were shiite militias. When the US wanted to paint them as the enemy, they were Iran backed militias. When they Free Syria Army was fighting Assad, they were good guys. When the Free Syrian Army was fighting the Kurds, they became "Turkish backed militias." It is really pretty amazing and most Americans just believe whatever their government says. This is the kind of foreign policy ddeemo likes. His government just taking sides, changing sides, causing foreign civil wars with mass death with no other beneift than make them money.
Oh and its funny that deemo mentions "fighting terorrism." There was 9/11 and a handful of very small scale (1 or 2 perpetrators) acts of terrorism in the US. So how do you invade 4+ nations and murder more than 100k people and indirectly cause the death of many more hundreds of thousands to "fight terrorism" when you dont even have acts of terrorism from any of those people or any reason to believe any of them were going to attack your country?
Last edited by RoyaleWithCheese; 11-03-2021 at 10:54 AM..
Its somewhat shocking to take your position of not counting VA spending as current military spending. It is spending on military retirement benefits. If you dont want to count it then dont provide it. Any entity counts is retirement spending as spending. Who could possibly agree with your position on this? No one acting rationally.
I guess we keep repeating ourselves on this point. You think not wanting to murder people in other countries is being isolationist. I think you avoid murder and focus on commerce and diplomacy. For some reason, you only view foreign relations as being through military actions. I think that is the worst possible part of foreign relations and is to be avoided at all costs. I am not really sure what terrorists you are referring to. I am not aware of the US military going after terrorists, just people defending their nations from an outside invader.
The reason why China is bothered is because it is provacation and threats. An advanced military could easily take out aircraft carriers by sending a barrage of missiles at it. In a war with an advanced nation, they are useless. They only have value in a war with a weak nation without advanced missiles.
What other parts of the budget take up more spending than the military? Of course $1 trillion a year causes budget issues. I never said that the government shouldnt provide for the defense of the nation. I said that it can be done while spending a drastically lower amount.
If you are suggesting eliminating foreign aid and many other payments to foreign entities, you will get no argument from me. Military spending is bipartisan, democrats and republicans equally guilty. It is just so much money and pure corruption that it is the gift that keeps giving for politicians.
VA is NOT military retirement benefits - look it up. I don't provide VA spending, congress does, but it doesn't go to defense budget. Military pensions do come out of the military budget.
Again, you clearly do not know what I profess - I clearly DID NOT say anything about "murdering people in other countries" or viewing "foreign relations through military action" - my views are quite the opposite. You need to quit attributing stuff I NEVER said as my position. You clearly have an agenda and seem to want to pigeonhole me by making stuff up.
You really don't understand China nor advanced weaponry - Your lack of knowledge about what you think is true is astounding. You seem to want to ignore the actual benefits of military spending and the drag on the economy of excess spending in other areas - that is just a symptom of someone that is closed of to even listening to another position supported by the actual data. You continue to push an opinion / supposition without any data to back it - that is just nonsense.
If you believe nonsense like that then what's the point of discussing? The terrorists we're (not) defeating are our former allies who we funded, the entire debacle is entirely a function of US interventionist policy. If we didn't have carriers three decades ago, we wouldn't have been able to eff up the Middle East in the first place, there wouldn't have been so many "terrorists" inspired to fight a country on the other side of the globe, and we wouldn't need carriers now to fight losing wars against those terrorists. It's an unsustainable self-propagating ponzi scheme. Reminds me of the East India Trading Company.
Not to mention that the term "terrorist" itself is entirely relative; a simple substitute for "enemy" with fear mongering added for some obfuscating spice.
Calling some else's position "nonsense" because don't like it and not worth "discussing" reeks of Fascism - dictating what can be discussed. To not even going to listen to a different point of view shows a closed mind but even then you continue the argument - peppered with opinion (interventionist, losing war, Ponzi scheme, etc) not facts. You are already a lost cause, mind made up, never going to change so why bother - maybe because others read this "nonsense".
One who pays close attention to the conflicts could only come to the conclusion that the US just makes war for the sake of making war for money. The Iraq Civil war was very fascinating. The US would support and oppose people from month to month. How they identified the groups to us changed depending on if they were on their side or not. When we were cool with them, they were shiite militias. When the US wanted to paint them as the enemy, they were Iran backed militias. When they Free Syria Army was fighting Assad, they were good guys. When the Free Syrian Army was fighting the Kurds, they became "Turkish backed militias." It is really pretty amazing and most Americans just believe whatever their government says. This is the kind of foreign policy ddeemo likes. His government just taking sides, changing sides, causing foreign civil wars with mass death with no other beneift than make them money.
Oh and its funny that deemo mentions "fighting terorrism." There was 9/11 and a handful of very small scale (1 or 2 perpetrators) acts of terrorism in the US. So how do you invade 4+ nations and murder more than 100k people and indirectly cause the death of many more hundreds of thousands to "fight terrorism" when you dont even have acts of terrorism from any of those people or any reason to believe any of them were going to attack your country?
So when US congress declared war (Dems and Repubs) they were making "war for the sake of making war for money" - not because we were attacked or an ally was invaded? The US, the UN and many other countries declared war against Iraq, it was not just the US and not a "civil war". You are trying to rewrite history. The rest is just nonsense, there was always a clear opponent.
My profile name is ddeemo and I never said the phrase "fighting terrorism" - it is obnoxious to misquote or take out of context.
You keep using murder, apparently without knowing the meaning - from wiki;
Quote:
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought.
Under international law - declared war is not murder. A declaration of war in itself creates a state of war under international law and legitimates the killing of enemy combatants The term enemy combatants includes those not in uniform that engage or supports attacks against the troops. The law of war rests on five fundamental principles: military necessity, unnecessary suffering, proportionality, distinction (not indiscriminate attack), and honor. Terrorist attacks like 9/11 meet the definition of murder even if they declare war (which they did not) by not holding to any of these principles.
The debt ceiling is never mentioned when the Republicans are the majority.
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