The Glade 4.0

Only if I can stop paying for the military and CIA.

If you can swing a Constitutional amendment, go for it.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I actually think there's genuine potential for this kind of "a la carte" approach to government taxes and spending. It wasn't possible in the past, but with modern information technology, it might be feasible to allow taxpayers to pick which programs their personal taxes fund, or at least to pick specific programs they'd prefer to opt out of. I'd really like to see this explored in a serious way, to be honest.

I like this idea. As long as we actually kill programs that don't receive enough money, as opposed to them running at a deficit. Otherwise there is no point.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

That sounds great, but the reality of this is problematic. For example, the CIA could not operate very well with substantial swings in funding. For example, if folks turn away from the CIA one year, or for a couple of years, and then there's an attack and everyone wants it funded, it can't hit the ground running again. Assets will have been lost.

The only programs that I can think of where this is possible where you can hire consultants or contractors. Then, you don't care if they all get laid off and have no work to do, and they can staff up quickly if needed. And this is not always the case, even in that regard. For example, you can't shut down the space program for 5 years, and expect everyone to still be around.

None of those claims are outright libelous. Most have their roots in the truth of the matter, but go one to become hyperbolous. People are free to their opinions. You seem to want to live in a world where legislation drives away dissent on issues you believe in, and that all who oppose your position will be immediately silenced by judicial decree. That's not the way it works.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Sort of, but it's not an all or nothing scenario. The military, CIA, and NASA, as examples, all have fairly broad support bases. I doubt they would experience swings sufficient to degrade their effectiveness. The social security administration would probably fall on hard times fairly quickly, along with untold pork projects.

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Lord, you think the tax code is complicated now....

The only way this would work is if people simply placed exclusions on their tax form to indicate which agencies could not receive their tax money. This would end up working much as funding for Planned Parenthood does now. "We don't use your money for this. We use this other money for this." Doesn't matter, they'd just shuffle things around until it worked.

And of course, if you actually did this...



...which is a good idea, don't get me wrong...not likely a single government department would remain operational, because the government only takes in enough tax money to find a small part of what it currently does.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

The CIA I can understand, the FBI and DHS as well... but the military? How is a first world country with an economic advantage even supposed to exist without a military? How are you supposed to protect your system of laws and heritage of rights?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Oh, I firmly believe that we need an effective military.

I just as firmly believe that it is WAY overfunded and larger than necessary.

My post was more to point out that everyone has things that they don't want to fund in the government.

Fair enough.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Actually, that's quite the opposite of reality unless you want to recall all soldiers posted on foreign soil for any reason whatsoever.

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Aizle is in support of the Libyan War, if I recall correctly.

Of course he is...

On what do you base this belief? How "large" is necessary? In what way do you beleive that it is large?

I've pointed out repeatedly that its size is not all that great in comparison to the physical size (3rd in the wordl) population (3rd in the world) and the fact that we have 2 states and several other posessions not contiguous with the first 48 states. It is large in an absolute sense, but that's a terrible basis for comparison.

As for cost, I would point out (yet again) that in addition to being large, it is also well-paid because we don't beleive in paying our soldiers a pittance as most other nations with large militaries do. This is good for combat effectiveness since it helps recruit good people and avoids problems of wondering if one's family has means while one is deployed. More importantly, we buy expensive equipement because we expect each piece, and those manning it, to last as long as possible both in and out of combat. We do not have throwaway systems.. or people.

So how is it way overfunded? This may be a hard concept to grasp, but a significantly smaller military would no longer be effective. You cannot simply shrink everything across the board and maintain a smaller version of the same military because some capabilities cannot be efficiently maintained at too small a size; the pieces simply do not scale perfectly. Once those capabilities are lost, replacing them is very hard.

There is room for targeted reductions in certain type of military capability, but the military is only "way overfunded" in the sense that immense waste could be eliminated without significant reductions in combat power. Gates was/is trying to implement some of this, but a great deal of that would require people to stop seeing it as a welfare program - and by people, I include people in the military who think they are entitled to an active duty retirement when they really perform no useful function.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

All soldiers need to be recalled unless it receives WAY more funding?

opposite of WAY overfunded = WAY underfunded...

dude, what? even if it is "way underfunded" we would not need to recall all our soldiers based on current funding.

The opposite of "way overfunded" could also be "not way overfunded" which would imply "funded adequately".

What Khross is saying is that major cuts in funding would require withdrawing all soliders on foriegn soil. In and of itself that wouldn't be all that problematic, but major funding reductions would also greatly reduce the ability to put them back if we need to.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That is not accurate though. We could cut the hell out of the military and leave some troops overseas. We obviously could not maintain current capabilities, but yeah. The military could be cut and maintain a significant presence overseas.

I'm not saying we should do this. I do think there is room for trimming, and yes, that would require pushing through a demobilization from some areas.

I would agree in the sense that this is physically possible, but from a standpoint of strategic planning it would be exceedingly unwise. Either a disproportionate number would be overseas, and thus would require a disproportionate logistical effort and be disproportionatley difficult to utilize, or a number much smaller in an absolute sense would be there, bringing their value into question; below a certain size (geenerally brigade strength with certain additional elements, or squadron strength for aircraft) their value is questionable at best except for certain specialized missions such as training and embassy guards (which we could never pull back).

Your're using very imprecise terms like "cut the hell out of" and "significant presence" and I really have a hard time knowing what you mean when you say those. Thus, in a very technical sense, you're correct: it is possible to do that. However, discussing what is conceiveably possible leaves open a wide range of options of very little merit. I'm sure this is the same in engineering; I imagine for most projects there are a large number of options that are conceiveably possible to construct or pursue but which really serve no practical purpose compared to other designs.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Arathain:

Our military is already over-extended and under-staffed for current engagements. I would not oppose expanding our military to 1990 levels at a minimum. Even then, we might not actually have enough people in uniform to address current conflicts. We have also continued to cut funds for both personnel, maintenance, and innovation over the last 20 years.

If you want to dramatically cut funding, you will need to cut more personnel, eliminate more redundancy in our officer corps, and withdraw the United States from international military actions and personnel obligations. Our first priority should be domestic defense and national self-interest: if we cannot protect either, then our military fails to meet its constitutional requirements.

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Or you know.. like... don't start things you can't finish

Since they pass out condoms and encourage other forms of birth control, I'm going to advance the theory that it is substantially more than zero.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

That theory has been advanced already. What reasoning could one give to arrive at the actual numbers?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Ask one of the math whizzes. It is all theory and estimation with no grounding in the real world to me.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones