All the wrong choices!

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   rhamsonposted 11 years ago

   In the senseless budget debates and spending arguments  it is funny that we don't look at the real cost factors and waste this country continuesIn the unending push towards imperial domination of the world. We are so ready to throw the seniors medicaid by the wayside and cut the food stamps all the while acting like these are the budget busters running up the debt. The minute you mention defense spending the contractors get on the horn and call the latest bought slimebag in congress to stir up the rhetoric and nip it in the bud.
   
   Just looking at the costs of operating an aircraft carrier group to patrol and offer immediate strike force capabilities is staggering. We currently operate 11 aircraft carriers with usually three in some sort of procurement stages at around 22 billion each. Add to that the 300 million to operate just the carrier with refits every 7 or 8 years the costs just keep rising.  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/dyke4.1.1.html
   
   According to David Eisenbergs report from the CATO institute this operation is just an illusion of power with more time and money being spent to protect the carriers that is reasonable to any type of security.
   "In 1984 Earl C. Ravenal, a former Pentagon analyst, made the following estimates: A Nimitz-class nuclear carrier would cost $3.8 billion; its complement of aircraft would cost $3 billion. Six escort ships (including an Aegis-equipped cruiser) and a group of attack submarines would cost $4 billion. The cost of replenishment ships and support systems would be $2 billion. The battle group's share of the cost of building and acquiring shore facilities would be $2 billion. And the 30-year life cycle operation and support cost would be $29.6 billion. Those costs add up to $44.4 billion, but for each carrier deployed forward overseas, two others would have to be kept in the rear--one in reserve and one in overhaul. Thus, the 30-year total cost of keeping a one-carrier battle group forward would be $133 billion. Earl C. Ravenal, Defining Defense: The 1985 Military Budget (Washington: Cato Institute, 1984), pp. 12-13"
   http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa134.html
   
   I should make a hub for this subject but the costs are too staggering to comprehend and we ignore these things so that we can deny basic human needs to operate this ridiculous farce perpetrated by the military industrial complex.

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      PrettyPantherposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I keep saying it, over and over again, that until conservatives are willing to address our bloated defense spending, then they have absolutely no credibility on budget issues.  Earned benefits like Medicare, Social Security, and other safety net programs return our tax money back to us, the citizens, while unnecessary and ill-advised invasions and occupations of foreign countries do little to protect us and one could argue make us less safe in the long run.

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         rhamsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I would agree with you that conservatives use this as a scare tactic but moreover it is the oligarchal hold on congress that the military industrial complex keeps pushing down our throats. The MIC is dictating foreign policy to line their pockets and keep it rolling on and on. This is a partisan problem and whenever you look at the way our representatives  (LOL) vote there is no way of making any change unless we throw them and any of the others that run the same way out.

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            PrettyPantherposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            It will not happen.  Just look at the, ahem, conservatives who post here.  They're all about dismantling social programs and hating Obamacare, but mention cutting defense or homeland security and they're all a'quiver with fear of China, Muslims, the New World Order, Black Panthers, illegal immigrants, and the list goes on.

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               rhamsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               The ones that post here that fit that description are just part of the machine. The propoganda machine. Everybody in politics has an agenda and through hook or crook they get the juices stirred up whatever particular way their handlers point them. I agree that there is a mindset to the conservative front but there is one from the left also. The problem is that the politicians feed these fears and keep us from uniting in any congealed manner. That would sound a death nell to the misinformation and conjecture that has and continues to ensue. The only purpose Congress seems to fulfill is the continued fleecing of America from both sides of the isle by the banks and big business facilitated by short sighted hucksters willing to whore out their vote to help themselves.

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            Aficionadaposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            A partisan problem? I would have thought it to be bipartisan or non-partisan.

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               rhamsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

               It should be a non-partisan or bi-partison solution but it is a partison dilemma.

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      JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I'm in favor of cutting defense/military/war spending, just not to the point where we are outpaced by anybody else(China spends a lot more than they claim, for instance. They just categorize a lot of it under different areas than military).
      
      I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Would it really be such a crazy idea for the US to run a surplus, instead of spending trillions and trillions on debt interest?

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         PrettyPantherposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         Crazy idea?  Not at all.  And you're right, they're not mutually exclusive.  However, politicians on the right focus only on earned benefits like Social Security and Medicare. and ignore defense spending.

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            JaxsonRaineposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            Yeah, it's too bad.
            
            Politicians on both sides are for defense spending though, if you really look at their votes.
            
            We DO need to spend some money on cyber defense... too bad that bill got shot down by D's adding a magazine(gun) ban to it. We spend billions of dollars on R&D, then the Chinese, among others, just steal terabytes of our data.

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      moment minderposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      This is what I wonder about and complain about all the time! But I don't see any democrats making any real efforts to focus on this area of the federal budget - and if they are we don't hear about them. I don't think it is just a "conservative" thing. We could reduce our defense budget by tons and still be the biggest power in the world, according to Ben (from Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, ha!) anyway.

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         rhamsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         The military budget is the "Sacred Cow" of both parties and ignored by the mainstream media to a fault. The scare you half to death messages from the military about fighting this war over there is just ear candy for the war supporters and music to the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Of course you are going to get more escallation and more cost if you leave this up to the military with regards to fighting the invisible sentinel war they would have us believe. But is there any real data to back it up or is it another matter of national defense to not reveal anything under the security issues that get in the way. The whole thing just gets ignored. Only when somebody gets killed does the war come up for discussion. I guess that it will take some news organization with real guts to follow this catastrophe more closely and report the deaths from a reality that these people dying over there are our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters before this greedy oligarchy we call the US Government will be made to answer for the tragedy. I would report how many have died every day and have the coffins given a moment of silence on national television as they come off the planes in Dover. Maybe then somebody will be held accountable for this travesty.

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            moment minderposted 11 years agoin reply to this

            I agree with Ralph Nader - Only the super rich can save us now, and they won't, because then they would only get to be "regular" rich, not super rich.

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   Mitch Alanposted 11 years ago

   I'm a Constitutional Conservative who believes we should de-federalize ALL programs that are not outlined in the Constitution and restricted by the 10th Amendment. The federal government was limited for a reason; Those things handled at the federal level are not able to efficiently meet the needs they were intended to. Get the federal government out of everything from education to marriage to welfare.
   As to the military...it is a Constitutional power specifically given to the federal government, but it should first and formost be used to secure our borders...that is it's purpose, but it isn't being used this way, and the federal government is actively NOT enforcing those laws. Can we help other nations if they are faced with invasion etc? Yes, but limited...

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      rhamsonposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree with a lot of what you are saying. The reason for this big fat overfed government is at the hands of those that profit from such a scheme. The welfare recipients are not getting rich from this as are not  those on medicaid or social security. So who is getting ahead from this nightmare. As a wise man once said follow the money. If we could get control of the spending by re-aligning "our" interest and not giving it over to those who are directing it then government could take a different direction. The biggest indication that this has all gone so horribly wrong is the pornographic campaign fundraising. Money is at the heart of our greed and politics is in business to getting all it can selling everything that is possible.

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      moment minderposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      defederalizing is ideal in a lot of ways but unrealisitic too. I think a nice step in the right direction would just be smaller federal government and more rights for each state to decide how they want to hold our hands.

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