By Mark Welker
The real problem with the budget is military spending.
We are currently griping about the sheer size of our government’s budget, and the debt we have accrued over the years. Republicans complain about social programs, and want to cut them to make up the shortfall-when the real problem is, and has always been; the military spending.
We have literally hundreds of bases around the world (well over 750 of our own at last count,
Plus we share bases with other countries, plus we have what are called “lily pads”-
Where we store equipment in case we need it-and there are hundreds of those too.)
In fact, there are very few places in the world where our military doesn’t have equipment
At hand nearby-you can count those places easier than where we do have equipment-
We have so much equipment all over the world, that if we closed all those bases, moved out of the bases we share, and cleaned out the places where that equipment is stored, and packed up and shipped all the equipment back to the US-
I am not sure there is enough room in the military reservations in California and Nevada
To stack, and store it all-and those reservations are so massive in land area, that all together,
They make up more land area than Mass., Conn., and Road Island combined.
That’s how much sheer mass of equipment we have out there around the world.
The fact is-we won the cold war by outspending the soviets in military spending.
And it broke them-and now we are paying the price…..and it will break us, as well.
We obviously need no more equipment built-we have more than will ever be used, yet we spend more on our military every year than half the world combined does.
We have been put in the role of being the world’s policeman-while our own country is declining in its ability to take care of its own people.
And now-they want us to pay for this elephant with our social programs- our health care, our retirement fund, our help to our own people when we need it- our ability to educate for the future-to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure—-and that list goes on.
(The biggest part of this- SS and Medicare, are NOT even part of the budget,
And are not paid from the general fund-they have paid for themselves, historically- and make no difference to deficits……they just want to rob them)
——————This is insane——————!!!!!!!!!
And that is where we as a people have to say: ——
No more spending on the military-not by making cuts on our people.
How much military do we really need?
I’ll tell you what we need…….
We need to end the wars, and the troops to come home. No question about it.
We need to assess what bases we have around the world that we really don’t need,
And close them.
We need to take the personnel we bring back, and transfer them to the corps of engineers- to fix our infrastructure-better than adding to our high unemployment, or another pentagon boondoggle-we have plenty to do here-and money they spend here is investment in our economy.
We need to sell the excess equipment to the UN, or to the friendly countries where it is located, and get back some of the money spent on it-and pay down some of the debt.
How President Obama is handling Libya is a good example of what we need to do in the future-
Get together with the world in the UN, and get them to agree how to handle world problems- to not be afraid to do our part when we are needed–and back what we stand for- but, let the rest of the world take up the slack-we don’t need to do it all.
We can be strong without being the world’s cop-and our society should not go to hell as the price.
Global defense spending;
We spend $1 Trillion thru the DOD, more on defense and interest for that debt than the rest of the world combined. Eisenhower warned against the military-industrial complex.
Good artical, but what are we going to do with the homocidal bastards in the military, this crap about the cult of the warrior has them beliee they are some kind of war gods, that they are fighting or us, how will you make them understand that they are killing for the dow jones average and not for US! My brother is one of them and walks around chanting about how great it is to kill someone, I had rather have them over there than here.
Great points – I’ve been saying something similar for a LONG time and in fact this VERY topic is what helped to realize that I have politically-conservative views (think of that the next time the television is telling you some nonsense about ANY political belief)
Rhode Island, not Road Island.
What is the source for that pie chart?
While I agree with the spirit of this article, I simply cannot share it with my friends. The writing style and grammar are horrible. Run-on sentences and sentence fragments abound — not to mention the insertion of paragraph breaks into the middle of sentences, which is jarring and makes this difficult to read.
I would suggest that you begin running all of the content on this site past an experienced editor. It would make it so much easier to take completely seriously.
My thoughts exactly. “Guest Writer”…hmmm. This article could’ve been better if it had been written correctly.
Reduce the military budget and put the money into actually helping countries in need learn how to be self-sustaining. Do it at the local level. This money would go much further towards promoting world peace than our military involvement.
And it just might save some lives. Those of our servicemen and the people we are helping.
Why is this so hard to understand?
You can help people for a fraction of the cost of our military budget. So there is no reason why the budget can’t be reduced while also spending money where it will make a difference.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, fucking thank you! If nothing else, for pointing out that Social Security and Medicare are not part of the federal budget, in that tax monies are not used to pay for them, and thus do not contribute to the deficit. Advocates of Paul Ryan and his ilk love to pretend it does to support the idea of clipping those safety nets.
I couldn’t agree more.
It’s time to end the madness. Bring our people home, put them to work fixing OUR country rather than meddling in others.
Close the bases abroad, and stop issuing a blank check for pointless military spending.
Republicans want to kill off social programs, education, health care, pensions, anything that doesn’t directly affect them because the rich elite can pay for these things privately. Doing this will only serve to further drive a wedge between rich and poor.
It’s a terrible thing we are doing to ourselves, and we do it all in the name of greed. How sad that the nation that once walked on the moon, is now turning its back on the very people that made this country great.