Should the $700,000,000,000 defense ...

budget/cost be added to the price of gas at the pump rather than my tax return?

A question with several facets.

 

No.

Very little of the defense budget goes to defending outr access to resources.

 

I'd rather see the government remove the for-profit possibilities from contractors. Take away "for profit" from the defense and healthcare private entities, and you'd probably cut 750 billion from the budget in year 1. They can still operate, but they must operate for cost and no more. Still paid for by the taxpayer, but not at premium prices with execs sticking billions in their own pockets that used to be taxpayer money.

When you profitize the deaths of our own citizens through healthcare as well as the murder of others by our military, you create an environment where sick people get to choose greed and corruption over doing what's right for every individual collectively. Its a sad, barbaric state to live this way. And its time for the "profit-trumps-all" mantra to fade away. In 1000 years, humanity might get it right, but with the current conservative delusions in place today, it won't happen until the next enlightenment period (ie, people getting their heads out of their arses and actually becoming good people).

 

Obviously, BTeamBomber has never run a business.

Running business without a profit is just trading dollars - a slow, agonizing trip to bankruptcy.

Take away the profit and you get a shortage.

Where on earth did you learn your goofy economics?

 

There is a HUGE difference when your sole client is the US government. Where did you learn economics? What, do you think defense contractors sell to the government for 25% of their business and "tank enthusiasts" for everything else? Seriously? Why should the tax payer pay for research, development, material, manufacturing AND investment/executive premium costs for entities that exist solely on behalf of creating a military device for the US government? Yes, I know that most contractors also have sub-businesses that sell to the public, but not the same materials and not the same way. I think those two entities should be split, and the government should NOT be subsidizing the profits of their other interests. If an organization wants to feed off the governments teets, they need clear transparency and legitimate operations that benefit the dollars the taxpayer spends on them. The fact that the government does NOT regulate this type of spending and enforce laws that are actually in place (for instance, the ability to null and void any contract by contract abusers), is one of the most wasteful, runaway problems with government.

I know conservatives that talk a great fiscal game would rather see education cut or welfare cut or actual beneficial government programs cut BEFORE they'd ever want private industries that abuse federal funds to ever get audited or axed. My question is, why?

 

Quote ...

" Why should the tax payer pay for research, development, material, manufacturing AND investment/executive premium costs for entities that exist solely on behalf of creating a military device for the US government?"

End quote.

So tax payers can sleep better at night knowing a missile wont hit your house.. .. a terrorist wont blow up your children's school..

You do know that most of the modern advancements in medicine and Communications came from military applications?
Small portable GPS and cell phones..?
The way we treat trauma victims in our society come form battlefield experience..
Even the advancement of woman's and Gay rights owe some of their advancement to the military ...

That same military does employ thousands of workers in research and development in this country..

Even the Church and the Religion...have had Army's and been involved in religious wars..Think that benefited their local parishes ?

What does not having a strong military lead to ?
ASK EUROPE..where bullies spring up every 30years and start another war.

 

Mnbillyboy:

- and fiendish Chinese won't rape your girlffriend.

- and russian thugs won't beat your children to a pulp for fun.

- and Chechen terrorists won't spread anthrax on your toast.

- and Colombian drug lords won't eat your liver.

- and mutant zombie bikers won't steal your stuff.

- and Mars won't attack.

....and a host of other equally improbable scenarios as Billyboys won't happen.

"Negative Evidence" isn't evidence. Defence budgets need to be based on credible emerging threats, not Strangelovian masturbatory fantasies ("they want to pollute our vital fluids!").

Yes, yes, I know; Pearl Harbor.

 

Where did you learn economics? There are thousands of Not-For-Profits operating in the US.

Is it too much to ask that the contractors that support our nation do it out of patriotism and not out of wanting to get rich via the taxpayers?

 

Ask Poland ( a earth country ) how they fared with that non military aggression ideal in the last 200 years ?

SEE AFRICA ( a earth continent ) how well peace loving peoples fare left to their own devices ?

Ask The Muslim religion ( another non Zombie religion ) how not having a strong military has worked in the last 1000 years.

Refer to South America ( another earth continent ) how a weak military allows thugs to terrorize entire nations and its peoples.
I dont think they ride Vespa scooters.

Ask Chinese people ( most populated nation on This planet ..) how well a NON democratic led military functions.
Maybe ask North Korea..or South Korea..or South Africa what happens when you didn't defend your own homes.

People more advanced ..and more powerful BEAT YOU.
You didn't face mutant zombies..Martian attacks..nor did you have a single RAMBO there defeating the evil while you ran around like a chicken with its head cut off.No super heroes..No Jack from 24..just AMERICAN BLOOD from ordinary heroes.

THANK YOU.

 

Billyboy, exactly how is it that you see cutting defense by say, 20% the RIGHT WAY, as the equivalent of our nation turning into carbon copy of a middle African Muslim nation? Do you not realize that we already have a military 3 times larger than ANY in the world? Do you not realize that we could annihilate any opposing nations army in a few short months with nothing left but mop up duty searching for caves and small cells of remaining opposition (which is what's taken years in our 2 current conflicts)? How exactly does slowing future research on what is already the most advanced technology in the world going to turn us into some weak nation ripe for the plucking by such fearsome enemies as Canada or Brazil?

Give me a break. You've got to cut something, and the US military is the most bloated, overspent, federal government boondoggle in ANY nations history.

 

Really! This is not my understanding. Explain more, please.

 

That is true. The vast majority of our spending goes towards personnel costs, R&D, and exercises.

 

So you're saying the US defence bill is at least in part socialism? I'd agree!

 

I find it bloody stupid when a nation is willing to spend 7 billion annually on its military but wont spend a cent on universal healthcare for the people the same military is suppose to protect.

Barbarians.

 

That question should also include Obama's national security force "as strong and well-funded as our military"....to fight terrorism I guess...the ones that don't exist.

 

Pacifism swept most of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Not Germany and Italy.

As a result most of Europe was not ready when the storm broke.

 

All with the intention of defending the country's "national interests", either today or tomorrow. We don't need the 7th Fleet to keep our supply of Persian rugs open.

 

I don't know, the not-for-profit and non-profit hospitals around here have been open for generations.

 

We had a HUGE military budget the day terrorists blew up the Trade Center. Shouldn't we be getting a refund?

 

It's insane. When looked at it in this perspective, it's very difficult to perceive the US as a first world country.

 

Ohhh the drama! And now Europe is once again peaceful but this time politically and fiscally unioned. We have taken the view that "there has never been such a thing as a good war or bad peace". In the US, your country is falling apart internally; education is a mess, so is your infrastructure and political processes. You are not preparing for the future of your people, you are failing them on a monumental scale.

 

That would be 700 billion.

 

Look at it this way: If we didn't spend $700,000,000,000/year on the military, we wouldn't be FREE to provide healthcare. hehe

 

Then you lack understanding and should educate yourself. Most of the liberal horde is in the same leaky boat telling each other what they think without really knowing what they are talking about.

Now we have a liberal from the bottom of the world who has no idea what he is talking about. We spend billions every year providing health care for the poor and the people who would rather be dependent on the government than do something for themselves.

The terrorists that the NSF will guard against are the domestic right wing christian terrorists that the progressives have identified and are ready to round up when the time is right.

 

I prefer a direct billing approach. We cannot continue to borrow to feed the military monster forever. That is just simple math. It's not a political statement. Lots of countries have been fully capable of defending themselves spending a mere fraction of what we do. So the next time we pick a name out of a hat and decide to invade, we simply get someone reasonably reliable to crunch the numbers. Then we send a bill to every household in America. See how much support the war gets. Americans are for almost anything provided they don't have to pay for it.