The Glade 4.0

Since we're broke and need to stop spending so much money, everything needs to see cuts. So how much of our defense budget should be cut?

Everything that doesn't have to do with actual defense. I'm not sure what those costs are relative to the spending we have, or how much of an increase we would need in actual domestic fortifications, so it's impossible for me to say.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

90%. We have major oceans separating us from any dangerous countries.

Right now, 0%. Once the government has demonstrated the ability to make massive cuts to entitlements, social spending, and no more hundred billion or trillion dollar "jobs" bills or bailouts, then we can think about trimming fat out of the defence budget 5% at the most, at a time.

However, our defense spending (exclusive of war spending which can be reduced by pulling back from current wars) is basically just now getting back to where it should be after the inexcusable postwar cuts of post-Desert Storm and the Clinton era. Spending should not be cut at all without very careful looking to make sure we are cutting wasteful excess, and not things like ships, brigades, or aircraft.

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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."

At least 50%, along with everything else, across the board.

I don't know enough about this to have an educated opinion. I'm listening.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

If you think China owns this country now, try cutting defense by 50% and see where it gets you. China doesn't need to be able to invade the CONUS, or even Alaska and Hawaii to be able to essentially dictate to us economically if we don't maintain our capabilities.

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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."

Our defense spending includes the spending we have in place to have a military presence in something like 130 countries around the world, many of the absurd structural expenses you have discussed before, and active wars in three countries. None of which is needed to protect us from China.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

"Protecting us from China" does not mean protecting us from direct attack by China, it means preventing China from using its own ever-improving defense establishment to create conditions more favorable to it and less favorable to us around the world by deterring them. For this, we need a powerful Navy (preferrably more powerful than we have now) a powerful Air Force (large enough, but a poor mix of aircraft and excessively distracted by matter other than air combat) and an adequate Army (could use some downsizing, particularly in formations designed for long term sustainment in combat rather than short, decisive actions). The answer is not to start cutting money, it's to start cutting fat and see what we save.

Second, we do not have a "military presence" in 130 countries around the world, nor do we have Ron Paul's "700+" or whatever number he's using these days foreign "bases" unless we count every Embassy Marine detachment as a military presence in a foriegn country (dishonest, since embassies are considered territory of the nation they represent) and every miniscule combat outpost in Iraq and Afghanistan as a "base".

The bottom line, however, is that right now the government does not deserve the privilege of cutting defense spending. Since WWII, defense spending has always been scrutinized heavily, and someone has always been putting it on the chopping block, so that social programs and entitlements are never cut and no one has to commit "political suicide". As a result, defense spending, which has a practical finite limit of need, and increases in taxes have become the only way to get the revenue situation under control, while social spending, which will never be "enough" grows out of control, augmented by massive bills that can spend almost an entire defense budget, or several years of war money to "create jobs".

The government cannot be trusted to cut the defense budget until it can demonstrate that will not be used as an excuse to avoid other unpopular cuts.

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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."

So the definition of "protecting us from China" has been expanded to include using the projection of force to keep their naturally expanding economy from making use of real markets, and to keep them from exploiting their own upswing from their current industrial revolution?

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_deployments

I was wrong, it's 150.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

I don't think expressing any cut as a blind percentage is the right thing to do. It depends on what you are cutting.

I think we need to stop paying the bill for other nations defense. I have no idea how much of the budget that is.

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

What percentage equals closing our bases abroad and stopping these wars?

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

They have a population of 1.4 billion people that is on average willing to work twice as hard as the average American, in addition to saving 33% of everything they make instead of -10%. On top of that, they are in general extremely racist and xenophobic towards anyone who isn't Chinese. If we let "natural market forces" work for any length of time we will be totally obsolete and they will truly own us.

Your over generalizing on both sides of the equation there.

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

83% of statistics are made up...

Midgen, I'm fairly sure that's 89%,

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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

Well, certainly Xequecal's percentage is much higher...

93.426 percent to be exact...

It hasn't "expanded" at all. This nation has always included projection of force to protect its own interest.

As for your predjudicial language about "naturally expanding economy" and such, yes. I hate to break it to you, but China is about China. Their "naturally expanding economy" is not some sort of lazzies faire benign growth. Their government, and quite a lot of their population would like very much to be not just the next superpower, but the top superpower, and would very much like to use their own developing force projection ability to prevent our economy from expanding naturally.

The same applies to quite a few other countries. Russia's economy has recovered quite a bit in the last several years and they are looking at significant rearmament. Other countries such as India may be benign and nonhostile now but we can hardly count on that forever, now, can we? China was an ally in WWII, a few years later they were backing Kim Il-Sung.

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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."

If you look at the handy map there on your own article you'll see that it's really far less than 150, and of those that DO, quite a few just include "use of military facilities" which basically means takeoff and land there or dock there. Of the remainder, quite a few are under 1,000 total personnel.

Again, the only way to get to 150 is to start counting embassy security detachments. Are you really going to argue securing our own embassies is a military deployment or military presence?

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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."

In a perfect world, where I was sure we'd seriously tackle entitlements, the tax code and so on I'd be all for identifying and eliminating any pork and waste from the military, then cutting off say 5-10% from that and see where we are.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

First I'd like to cut the national offense spending. Bring the troops home. Let the out, to join the national depression, unable to find jobs and going n the dole. Let's see how much that saves.

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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

Quite frankly, I would be all in favor of going back to the pre-1947 term "War department" just so there's no confusion about what it's for, and so we can avoid any more silly semantic arguments over what "defense" refers 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."

50%

I really don't like the idea of mindless cut in this or any other area. Why are we just focusing on defense spending here? Where are the entitlement, bureaucratic, etc. threads at?

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