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Dan8267
2014 Feb 12, 3:21am
You said cut the defense budget by 95%, but have absolutely no idea what impact this would have on those serving.
There would be fewer of them. Again, public sector jobs bad, private sector jobs good. Having so many public sector jobs hurts private sector jobs. All conservative politicians, radio, and news programs repeat that mantra ad nauseam. Are you saying that conservatives have been lying for the past 50 years?
There is no reason we can't cut our military to the same levels as the British empire (a 90% cut) or even further as we have massive stockpiles of weapons.
Plus, public sector employees New Renter says
Again Dan you are mixing arguments. Decimating the military will not reform the police forces.
Agreed. They are separate issues.
I am pointing out that without a strong military there is no check for the corrupt police. None.
I've never seen the military stop corrupt police forces in my lifetime. I'd like to see that, but I don't buy the argument that the military keeps us safe from the police.
I also think there are other ways to keep us safe from the police like having a civilian taskforce that can issue arrest warrants for cops, having cops tried by civilians outside the existing court system in order to avoid inherent conflicts of interests, and using cameras extensively to record police action.
Also, we can disbar judges who issue warrants that should not have been issued. We can limit the number of warrants the state can issue to x% of the population per year, thus making warrants rare and valuable and thus less prone to be wasted on fishing expeditions and harassment. There are lots of reforms we can make.
Dan8267
2014 Feb 12, 3:24am
Think so eh?
The U.S. has the exact same problem to deal with as the U.N. considers lifting the sanctions on Iraq. It's a matter of law enforcement, no different than preventing loose nukes from getting in the hands of enemy states.
New Renter
2014 Feb 12, 5:36am
Think so eh?
The U.S. has the exact same problem to deal with as the U.N. considers lifting the sanctions on Iraq. It's a matter of law enforcement, no different than preventing loose nukes from getting in the hands of enemy states.
You lost me, how is lifting sanctions on Iraq, (who as we all know does NOT have nuclear arms) exactly the same as punishing a private company guilty of selling crucial technology to our cold war foe?
New Renter
2014 Feb 12, 5:55am
New Renter says
I am pointing out that without a strong military there is no check for the corrupt police. None.
I've never seen the military stop corrupt police forces in my lifetime. I'd like to see that, but I don't buy the argument that the military keeps us safe from the police.
Because officially the US military has been prevented from doing so since 1878
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act
Officially anyway.
Dan8267
2014 Feb 12, 6:57am
You lost me, how is lifting sanctions on Iraq, (who as we all know does NOT have nuclear arms) exactly the same as punishing a private company guilty of selling crucial technology to our cold war foe?
A few days ago on NPR -- I think it was the Diane Rehm Show -- they were discussing how the lifting or easement of sanctions against Iraq will let some French companies that are very interested in doing business there potentially increase Iraq's warfare capabilities. I don't have a link, but the gist of the story was that foreign and transnational corporations may, without even intending to do so, create regional instability and undermine U.S. or even world interests.
New Renter
2014 Feb 12, 7:11am
You lost me, how is lifting sanctions on Iraq, (who as we all know does NOT have nuclear arms) exactly the same as punishing a private company guilty of selling crucial technology to our cold war foe?
A few days ago on NPR -- I think it was the Diane Rehm Show -- they were discussing how the lifting or easement of sanctions against Iraq will let some French companies that are very interested in doing business there potentially increase Iraq's warfare capabilities. I don't have a link, but the gist of the story was that foreign and transnational corporations may, without even intending to do so, create regional instability and undermine U.S. or even world interests.
That's still very different from selling secret US military tech to its cold war foes for profit.
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You want to eliminate the debt, cut military spending by 95%.
Deficit: $740 billion
Warfare Spending: $830 billion
Cutting 95% of warfare spending will eliminate the deficit and produce a surplus of $48.5 billion. Just by doing this one damn thing and not even touching anything else. Hell, even reducing by just 90%, would produce a surplus of $7 billion and we'd still be spending $83 billion a year, about as much as Russia and half of what China spends. The next 12 countries (U.K., Japan, France, Saudi Arabia, India, Germany, Italy, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Turkey), all of which are allies of ours, would spend in total $493.3 billion, which is more than enough to keep our most favored trading nation, China, and the crumpling Russia in check. It's not like we're going to lose our nukes either.
So, let's say we cut the warfare spending by merely 90%, which still keeps us as the biggest spenders in the Western alliance. Without any harm to national security -- hell, we'll be more secure since we won't have war profiteers creating instability and warfare to drum up profits, so the world would be far safer -- we have completely eliminated the deficit and created a surplus of $7 billion. And that's without touching Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or any social services.
But we can do even better and increase the surplus substantially.
1. Eliminate the Department of Homeland Security, $35.5 billion
2. Eliminate the NSA and its cohorts, $75 billion
3. Eliminate the war on drugs, $15 billion just on the federal level. The savings on the state level would be a boon to local economies.
Again, without touching any social services, I've increased the surplus to $132.5 billion / year. With a national debt of $17,214 billion and interest payments of $220 billion / year, 1.278% average interest rate. The $132.5 billion/yr surplus is after paying the $220 billion/yr in interest. So the total debt payments is $352.5 billion in the first year. Without any budget changes other than taking the money saved by reduced interest payments and applying it to the debt payment, we would eliminate the debt by 2072, and that's without printing any more money ever again. And in 2072, we'd have about $570 billion in today's dollars surplus.
If we nationalize health care, we'd eliminate the need for Medicare and Medicaid, saving $717 billion/yr. The nationalized health care would be paid for by the income tax.
Doing this, increases our surplus from $132.5 billion to $849.5 billion, and our debt payments to $1.0695 trillion. This reduces the time to pay off the entire national debt, and America is debt free in the year 2030 with a surplus of about $1.3 trillion/yr, again without ever printing any more money, so that's today's dollars.
So there is no need for Grandma to eat cat food. Simply stop war-for-profit, illegal spying and wiretapping, TSA rapists, the evil war on people (er, drugs), and nationalize healthcare and our nation can be debt free and have a surplus of over $1.3 trillion/yr in as little as 17 years.
Fuck the CEOs who want your grandma to eat cat food. This plan is better and would actually work without cutting any social safety nets, any education, or any anti-poverty programs.