(01-22-2017 03:47 PM)DavidSt Wrote: 57% of our spending is for the Military, the wars we are in, giving money and weapons to other countries. Many of the departments of spending are between 1% to 6%. Cutting that area only would not help since Trump wants to spend more money for the military.
Well, there it is. We can't cut any spending.
Start cutting spending and look at every department.
With Mattis on board, my guess is there will be fat removed from military spending and some current budgetary items repurposed. Mattis made mention of obligations to taxpayer in his very 1st communication to the armed forces right after swearing in.
I think he may be Trumps best pick. He has been through the fire and knows where to go after waste that will not hurt US security. Ill be very interested to see his recommendations.
Even if he wants to cut spending, you'll probably see a ******* congressman fight it because it'll cost jobs in his district.
Trump would be battling Republicans on this. Republicans are refusing to discuss how much their pet projects are costing more to the tax payers of America than the Democrats. We wasted Trillions of dollars to prop up countries like Panama, Philippines, Iraq when Saddam was in charge, African nations that used the weapons against their own people and so forth. All that budget comes under the Military spending. The Military Vet pension and VA care are listed separately as a Welfare Benefit like the ordinary people.
(01-22-2017 03:47 PM)DavidSt Wrote: 57% of our spending is for the Military, the wars we are in, giving money and weapons to other countries. Many of the departments of spending are between 1% to 6%. Cutting that area only would not help since Trump wants to spend more money for the military.
Well, there it is. We can't cut any spending.
Start cutting spending and look at every department.
With Mattis on board, my guess is there will be fat removed from military spending and some current budgetary items repurposed. Mattis made mention of obligations to taxpayer in his very 1st communication to the armed forces right after swearing in.
I think he may be Trumps best pick. He has been through the fire and knows where to go after waste that will not hurt US security. Ill be very interested to see his recommendations.
Even if he wants to cut spending, you'll probably see a ******* congressman fight it because it'll cost jobs in his district.
Trump would be battling Republicans on this. Republicans are refusing to discuss how much their pet projects are costing more to the tax payers of America than the Democrats. We wasted Trillions of dollars to prop up countries like Panama, Philippines, Iraq when Saddam was in charge, African nations that used the weapons against their own people and so forth. All that budget comes under the Military spending. The Military Vet pension and VA care are listed separately as a Welfare Benefit like the ordinary people.
This is what is wrong with republicans. They can't be the party of fiscal responsibility, because they don't want to be fiscally responsible.
Zero-based budgeting is our friend. Although I'm pessimistic that we'll actually end up with a surplus soon, if anyone can pull it off it's someone crazy like Trump.
Is the goal of government to run a surplus? I would agree that wasteful spending should be cut and that we don't run the nation into a pile of red ink, but there are needs that we need to address. There are certain things that the government should do - and that private business should not.
Government is really just a service we need and pay taxes for.
Let's be realistic about this. I would be overjoyed if next year the government spent $0 more than this year. That would be more than a positive start.
Military is the largest at 53.71%.
Government for the salaries of the elected officials, staff and employees including law enforcement and CIA. The highest waste of that budget went to the elected officials including their single payer's health care plan. Bernie is correct. If it is good for the elected officials? Why can't the tax-payers get the same? You noticed how the Republicans are hypocrites about the single-payer's health care?
Medicare and health care is only at 5.93%. That is not really enough.
Social Security, Disability and Labor issues is only at 2.61%. Republicans want to cut that and Medicare and Medicaid when they are not the problem really.
We spend too much money for other countries, but not enough to help our own people. Both parties are are guilty of that.
True, most of these offices are staffed with political hacks that only exist to get a paycheck on our dime as a thank you for your support of said elected official. They never really come up with any new ideas to improve anything other than blocking pathways of the opposing party to provide job growth in their districts by imposing environmental B.S. regulations on Them as stumbling blocks for growth.
Military is the largest at 53.71%.
Government for the salaries of the elected officials, staff and employees including law enforcement and CIA. The highest waste of that budget went to the elected officials including their single payer's health care plan. Bernie is correct. If it is good for the elected officials? Why can't the tax-payers get the same? You noticed how the Republicans are hypocrites about the single-payer's health care?
Medicare and health care is only at 5.93%. That is not really enough.
Social Security, Disability and Labor issues is only at 2.61%. Republicans want to cut that and Medicare and Medicaid when they are not the problem really.
We spend too much money for other countries, but not enough to help our own people. Both parties are are guilty of that.
I'm not going to say that military spending is untouchable, in fact I think it should get a haircut just like everything else. However, what I find disingenuous in the site you reference is having military spending as being 100% discretionary and social spending as all mandatory - "It is dominated by the well-known earned-benefit programs Social Security and Medicare. It also includes widely used safety net programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), and a significant amount of federal spending on transportation, among other things."
The Constitutional clause that talks about "raise and support Armies" and our obvious need to be able to protect ourselves as a country I think pushes Military spending from discretionary more into the mandated category........the funding levels are debatable, but not that we have a military.
When total spending is listed, the military drops to the 3rd highest "bucket".
I'm all for getting out of other countries affairs militarily, I just have a problem with calling all military spending discretionary and SS and Medicare/Medicaid as mandatory.
Military is the largest at 53.71%.
Government for the salaries of the elected officials, staff and employees including law enforcement and CIA. The highest waste of that budget went to the elected officials including their single payer's health care plan. Bernie is correct. If it is good for the elected officials? Why can't the tax-payers get the same? You noticed how the Republicans are hypocrites about the single-payer's health care?
Medicare and health care is only at 5.93%. That is not really enough.
Social Security, Disability and Labor issues is only at 2.61%. Republicans want to cut that and Medicare and Medicaid when they are not the problem really.
We spend too much money for other countries, but not enough to help our own people. Both parties are are guilty of that.
I'm not going to say that military spending is untouchable, in fact I think it should get a haircut just like everything else. However, what I find disingenuous in the site you reference is having military spending as being 100% discretionary and social spending as all mandatory - "It is dominated by the well-known earned-benefit programs Social Security and Medicare. It also includes widely used safety net programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), and a significant amount of federal spending on transportation, among other things."
The Constitutional clause that talks about "raise and support Armies" and our obvious need to be able to protect ourselves as a country I think pushes Military spending from discretionary more into the mandated category........the funding levels are debatable, but not that we have a military.
When total spending is listed, the military drops to the 3rd highest "bucket".
I'm all for getting out of other countries affairs militarily, I just have a problem with calling all military spending discretionary and SS and Medicare/Medicaid as mandatory.
SS and Medicare though are programs that have been paid into by working folks over and above the Federal and State tax rates. It's an insurance type program that is funded separately from out of Your paychecks and matched by employers. Somehow that funding gets used or borrowed from to fund other government programs. If the government would stop stealing from it , there would be no shortcomings with it. It's all self inflicted by politicians with other agendas.
Welfare, Military, road funding, education ect. should stay out of the SS/Medicare funds.
(01-22-2017 11:30 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote: I'd say a large surplus is as much a failure by government as a deficit.
This. If the government is running a huge surplus, it either means they are taxing us too much, or taxing us and not giving us anything in return for it.
The government isn't a business. Its goal shouldn't be to be profitable--it should break even, or run very small surpluses or deficits from year to year. Anything else is either a spending problem or a taxing problem.
This is going to be the time where DJT will need to circumvent the media, Dems and GOP to get that message straight to the people. He will need to channel Reagan's effective use of presidential addresses directly to the people. Twitter can be an effective tool; however, he's going to have to become much more focused in his remarks moving forward.
(01-23-2017 09:11 AM)miko33 Wrote: This is going to be the time where DJT will need to circumvent the media, Dems and GOP to get that message straight to the people. He will need to channel Reagan's effective use of presidential addresses directly to the people. Twitter can be an effective tool; however, he's going to have to become much more focused in his remarks moving forward.
Yes, it's like the boy crying wolf. Use it when there really is a wolf.
Military is the largest at 53.71%.
Government for the salaries of the elected officials, staff and employees including law enforcement and CIA. The highest waste of that budget went to the elected officials including their single payer's health care plan. Bernie is correct. If it is good for the elected officials? Why can't the tax-payers get the same? You noticed how the Republicans are hypocrites about the single-payer's health care?
Medicare and health care is only at 5.93%. That is not really enough.
Social Security, Disability and Labor issues is only at 2.61%. Republicans want to cut that and Medicare and Medicaid when they are not the problem really.
We spend too much money for other countries, but not enough to help our own people. Both parties are are guilty of that.
I'm against govt waste but if you don't have a strong military none of those other things get to occur.
Military is the largest at 53.71%.
Government for the salaries of the elected officials, staff and employees including law enforcement and CIA. The highest waste of that budget went to the elected officials including their single payer's health care plan. Bernie is correct. If it is good for the elected officials? Why can't the tax-payers get the same? You noticed how the Republicans are hypocrites about the single-payer's health care?
Medicare and health care is only at 5.93%. That is not really enough.
Social Security, Disability and Labor issues is only at 2.61%. Republicans want to cut that and Medicare and Medicaid when they are not the problem really.
We spend too much money for other countries, but not enough to help our own people. Both parties are are guilty of that.
I'm against govt waste but if you don't have a strong military none of those other things get to occur.
Yes, but look at how much more the U.S. spends vs the next "big" spenders in the world.
The US defense spending is largely the result of the role that the US took on in the Bretton Woods agreements. The key to reducing the US spending is to get other countries to take on more of the role of filling the vacuum that will result if we withdraw from the Bretton Woods responsibilities. Which Trump is trying to do. Except the media portrays it as trying to destroy NATO.
There are two options. The US can keep spending as much as the next however many nations combined, or other countries can pick up more of the load. There is not an option called we can cut back and the world will become a peaceful place. Those are the only two options. So which do you prefer?
(This post was last modified: 01-23-2017 10:00 AM by Owl 69/70/75.)
(01-23-2017 09:59 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: The US defense spending is largely the result of the role that the US took on in the Bretton Woods agreements. The key to reducing the US spending is to get other countries to take on more of the role of filling the vacuum that will result if we withdraw from the Bretton Woods responsibilities. Which Trump is trying to do. Except the media portrays it as trying to destroy NATO.
There are two options. The US can keep spending as much as the next however many nations combined, or other countries can pick up more of the load. There is not an option called we can cut back and the world will become a peaceful place. Those are the only two options. So which do you prefer?
I thought Bretton Woods was limited to currency manipulation agreements where the dollar proxied for gold due to the dollar pegged to a fixed gold price. If there was a larger scope to it than that then I stand corrected. I know the Marshall Plan was the vehicle by which U.S. military spending was fixed based on the allies in Europe's need to focus on rebuilding their own countries as quickly as possible in order to prevent being gobbled up by the Soviets. We simply did not transition it back to Europe after they were back up on their feet.
(01-23-2017 09:59 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: The US defense spending is largely the result of the role that the US took on in the Bretton Woods agreements. The key to reducing the US spending is to get other countries to take on more of the role of filling the vacuum that will result if we withdraw from the Bretton Woods responsibilities. Which Trump is trying to do. Except the media portrays it as trying to destroy NATO.
There are two options. The US can keep spending as much as the next however many nations combined, or other countries can pick up more of the load. There is not an option called we can cut back and the world will become a peaceful place. Those are the only two options. So which do you prefer?
I thought Bretton Woods was limited to currency manipulation agreements where the dollar proxied for gold due to the dollar pegged to a fixed gold price. If there was a larger scope to it than that then I stand corrected. I know the Marshall Plan was the vehicle by which U.S. military spending was fixed based on the allies in Europe's need to focus on rebuilding their own countries as quickly as possible in order to prevent being gobbled up by the Soviets. We simply did not transition it back to Europe after they were back up on their feet.
That was a big part of it, and the part that the public understands. But there was a lot more. Things like the Marshall Plan followed the script.
Check this out starting at about 4:30 (though you may want to go about a minute earlier to get the background):
(01-21-2017 02:55 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote: Uh ... this dude blew me away. And some of his predictions (looking at you, Ukraine) have ALREADY come to pass.
(01-23-2017 09:59 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote: The US defense spending is largely the result of the role that the US took on in the Bretton Woods agreements. The key to reducing the US spending is to get other countries to take on more of the role of filling the vacuum that will result if we withdraw from the Bretton Woods responsibilities. Which Trump is trying to do. Except the media portrays it as trying to destroy NATO.
There are two options. The US can keep spending as much as the next however many nations combined, or other countries can pick up more of the load. There is not an option called we can cut back and the world will become a peaceful place. Those are the only two options. So which do you prefer?
I thought Bretton Woods was limited to currency manipulation agreements where the dollar proxied for gold due to the dollar pegged to a fixed gold price. If there was a larger scope to it than that then I stand corrected. I know the Marshall Plan was the vehicle by which U.S. military spending was fixed based on the allies in Europe's need to focus on rebuilding their own countries as quickly as possible in order to prevent being gobbled up by the Soviets. We simply did not transition it back to Europe after they were back up on their feet.
That was a big part of it, and the part that the public understands. But there was a lot more. Things like the Marshall Plan followed the script.
Check this out starting at about 4:30 (though you may want to go about a minute earlier to get the background):
(01-21-2017 02:55 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote: Uh ... this dude blew me away. And some of his predictions (looking at you, Ukraine) have ALREADY come to pass.
(01-23-2017 11:24 AM)miko33 Wrote: Thanks. It added more details to what I learned in history. Interesting stuff!
I have not seen this discussed a lot of other places. But as a US Naval officer working with NATO, I could see this being played out in practice every day.
![[Image: 5727eaf852bcd066018c068d-754-732]](http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5727eaf852bcd066018c068d-754-732)