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StumbleLETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Anti-socialism rhetoric: Should it apply to military?
Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010 | 2:02 a.m.
Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle and other anti-tax advocates should now focus on excessive socialistic military expenditures. After all, annual expenses for defense and veterans, at more than 20 percent of the national budget, do constitute a larger sum than health care costs. The United States spends as much on defense as all other nations combined.
Angle claims to be against socialistic programs. Military benefits include subsidized housing, counseling and education. And, deservedly so, military personnel receive socialized health care.
Defense contractors regularly obtain multimillion-dollar contracts with no competitive bidding. According to the Pentagon, the United States has more than 800 foreign military bases. Globally, the United States has an extremely robust socialistic military presence.
Germany and Japan have been receiving billions annually for more than 50 years. These and other countries can then have their engineers devoted to producing cars and other products for Americans to purchase.
The U.S. Navy is as strong as all other navies in the world combined. It only took two “small” bombs to get the unilateral surrender of Japan. As the dozens of warheads on one invulnerable nuclear submarine can destroy almost any country, a sizable portion of these socialistic expenses are a complete waste to taxpayers.
Discussion: 15 comments so far…
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Locally owned and independent for more than 50 years.
That is not the way that Halliburton sees things.
Bring back the Monroe Doctrine!
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Mr. Bird will soon be humiliated and ridiculed for his words by the idiot posters herein who A. Have no facts
B. Do not want to deal with facts
C. Have opinions based upon racism and internal, ingrained hate of those unlike them
D. Are followers of Bimbos like Angle, a certified, notarized full blown idiot whose mouth stays in gear but a brain that does not run
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Its time to cut the military and all those benefits down by two thirds, end all wars today, stop that trillions in foreign aid and put in a massive public works program across this nation
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Media spends all it's time, practically, covering AWOLBush Wars .... it's surreal what this county is doing and not doing .... why the people tolerate AWOLBush and the Toliobone Party of incinerations at any level is mysterious
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Is Paris Hilton and her bo .... are they supporters of Drug Cartels?
Mark, your figures are little off if you consider social security is not part of the budget. Defense accounts for 32% of the budget. If you take the surplus money from social security and apply it Medicare, defense spending goes to 36%. Other than that, you are spot on about the hypocrisy of tea baggers and the conservatives in this country.
Don't forget about the $2.5 surplus in social security that Angle and the republicans want skim from or steal completely. The government spent that money and replaced it with treasury bonds. To avoid redeeming the outstanding bonds, they pretend the money is gone and working people should work longer and take benefit cuts. At the same time, we borrow money from China and must pay off those bonds. The conservatives would rather pay the debts owed to foreign countries and corporations, rather than honor the obligation to the American working people. Working people are fools if they vote for conservatives, republicans or tea baggers.
Previous post that should have read $2.5 trillion the feds owe the American workers.
President Obama does appear to want to help the average American with increased social programs, despite the large cost.
Therefore, the fact that Obama has so far made no attempt whatsoever to reduce military spending, leads me to believe that he is not running America. The military or C.I.A. must in fact be in charge, because it appears insane to me as a foreigner that America wastes so much on military while this terrible recession batters the public.
The letter writer does seem to make valid points.
The U.S. spends two to three times as much on the welfare state as it does the military. Yes we should look at budget cuts for the bloated military, but we shouldn't be funneling even more money to hold up the bloat in every other government agency - that is just hypocrisy.
I heard it was fosimmons purse that Paris had when she was busted.
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The Canadian From Belleville Says The CIA And The Military Is Running The Country
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A Two Question Test:
A. He is writing satire
B. He actually believes the CIA or Military must be in charge .... well, which one, then? There's a big difference.
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America run by the CIA .... a day in Las Vegas, men in trench coats and spy glasses and fast sporty Italian cars racing about the Strip, fancy females with silver cigarette cases in the arms of dashing, slick men in the casinos at the craps table ..... and sleek private jets rocketing in and out of the city the cargos of gold bars and diamonds .... yes, to me this is most likely the case. Now, it seems the covert division of the CIA's North American Security and Management Section has infiltrated Toronto and Vancouver and are plotting a mutual and joint revolution nicely coordinated with London to rid itselves of that country known as Canada and incorporate it into the United States, banks, treasures and all. Nicely welcomed by all Europe.
A Military run America .... the Strip is now lined with barracks, cots and tents, thousands of troops guarding the doors of all the casinos forbidding anyone entrance.
Public transportation no longer exists. Papers are required on each person. Only rations will be allowed , no alcohol, cigarettes or any candy or other foods not considered a military ration. The airport is manned by the military and all planes are Air Force and Navy. All casino rooms are occupied by the officers.
Curfew is 7:00 AM to 9:00PM with all violators court marshalled immediately
All expenses must be signed off on by your CO
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There you have it.
Gibbon's welfare state computations include Social Security and Medicare, which Angle wants to eliminate. Canada balanced the budget 12 out of the last 13 years with all their "welfare state" spending and has a lower debt to GDP ratio than the USA.
Bush borrowed from communist China to pay for the two Bush wars. WWII was 4 trillion in inflation adjusted dollars, Afghanistan and Iraq is 1 trillion so far, costing more than Vietnam.
There is nothing in the Constitution that establishes Veteran's benefits. Some Revolutionary War soldiers got land in Ohio, not mush more than other citizens got at the time.
The notion that VA perks, medical care, tuition payments, home and business loans, etc. are "different" than other government established programs is voodoo logic. Whether workers compensation, Social Security, Medicare or many Veteran's programs, the government takes money from the employee/employer/soldier and gives benefits to the employees/Veterans at a later date.
The President claims to have pulled all combat troops out of Iraq. I understand there are 50,000 troops still over there. Are they not capable of combat? Are they unarmed?
The United States Army entered Germany in 1945. They are still there.
In 1950 the U.S. Army entered Korea. They are still there. Those are just two examples of the stupidity of the United States management of it's army. The men and woman of the Army live abroad with their dependents, propping up the local economy with U.S.D. None of that money helps the American economy. It is a sterile investment. I say bring 'em all home. Station them along the 1200 mile border with Mexico and at least the money that the treasury pays them will help our own economy.
Angle hates all government agencies except the military and the Interior Dept where her husband worked for many years, earning the Angle klan a large pension, care of you and I, the American taxpayer.
Here's how the scheme works -- besides the Pentagon, Sharron favors only those Big Governmnet teets that have provided her family with a lifetime of fresh, creamy milk. She has hers and that where the sucking ends. Screw everyone else.
Socialism can't work in a country where endemic poverty is voluntary.
It doesn't apply to anything a republican/libertarian/teabagger teatard says it doesn't apply to.
Like roads, courts, jails, contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan that we are paying PREMIUM wages to instead of drafting the republican/libertarian/teabagger teatard's children into sclepping meals for our soldiers, nope, we send in a catering service at our expense.
The whole lot of the republican/libertarian/teabagger teatard's who believe this stuff have been poisoned by their prejudice.
Time will show them the error of their ways, that and 20-50 thousand dead Iraqi mothers and babies on their hands for eternity...
Patrick Gibbons, of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, which is funded by the conservative Cato Institute and calls itself "a free-market think tank that seeks private solutions to public challenges" not surprisingly is pushing his company's and the Cato Institute's position again here.
Patrick's employer would like to privatize social security and basically roll back Roosevelt's New Deal, even in the midst of a massive recession created in part by a dismantling of the New Deal's financial regulations.
Not surprisingly, he writes:
"The U.S. spends two to three times as much on the welfare state as it does the military. Yes we should look at budget cuts for the bloated military, but we shouldn't be funneling even more money to hold up the bloat in every other government agency - that is just hypocrisy."
What's interesting is that Patrick's employer is funded by the Cato Institute who in turn is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, who are oil billionaires who want their taxes reduced. They also produce formaldehyde, which causes cancer--and they are fighting the EPA to prevent their profits from being lowered while they spread cancer across America.
Oh, and did I mention that they are the prime funders behind the Tea Party Movement?
The Koch brothers hope to deregulate as much of American industry as possible through their Tea Party movement, funding for the Cato Institute, etc. They also hope to squash the EPA and destroy all science that supports global warming, because they will save more money that way. A nice couple of fellas:"
"From the New Yorker:
"The Kochs are longtime libertarians who believe in drastically lower personal and corporate taxes, minimal social services for the needy, and much less oversight of industry--especially environmental regulation. These views dovetail with the brothers' corporate interests. In a study released this spring, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute named Koch Industries one of the top ten air polluters in the United States. And Greenpeace issued a report identifying the company as a "kingpin of climate science denial." The report showed that, from 2005 to 2008, the Kochs vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups. Indeed, the brothers have funded opposition campaigns against so many Obama Administration policies--from health-care reform to the economic-stimulus program--that, in political circles, their ideological network is known as the Kochtopus..."What they don't say is that, in part, this is a grassroots citizens' movement brought to you by a bunch of oil billionaires."
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/...
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/comp...
The Tea Partiers should be proud.
AP
gbigs writes:
"Obamas Regime has double the debt."
Sorry, gbigs, you got your facts twisted:
Reagan: cut taxes and tripled the national debt.
Bush I: cut taxes and doubled the national debt
Clinton: raised taxes, balanced the budget and began paying down the national debt.
Bush II: cut taxes and doubled the national debt (Bush added over 4 1/2 trillion to the national debt--about half of the entire national debt when he left office).
Three Republican administrations created nearly 9 trillion of the 10.35 trillion dollars the national debt was when Bush left office.
Obama: the Bush tax cuts are set to expire. The Republicans are fighting to keep them. Even David Stockman, who was Reagan's financial advisor, says that to extend the tax cuts would be suicidal.
What's funny is your original statement, that Obama has doubled the national debt. Hmmm. That would make it about 21 trillion dollars now.
Wild fantasy on your part, gbigs, as usual.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinio...
AP
No-bid contracts are a big problem for military spending and should be eliminated.
But we will not be able to reduce the size of our military by much so long as the rest of the world, primarily those welfare states that so many point to as examples for us, essentially use our military to supplement theirs.
Veterans benefits are not entitlements or socialism in any way, shape or form. They are part of a contract between the US government and an individual person who joins the military. They are employment benefits, just like any other job has.
A pipeline owned by the Koch's blew up and killed a couple of teenagers. Because they were told repeatedly that the pipeline was unsafe, the jury awarded $378 million including punitive damages because of the woeful disregard for public safety. The libertarians want to kill and sicken people and get away with it. That is why they back "Bible-thumpers" like Glen Buck and Sharon Angle..."it was just God's will that the kids were incinerated...not the company's fault..."
gbigs..the Iraq war was a $2 trillion dollar affair when you include all costs.
Mred: The two teens were killed by being stupid, You dont light a match when you smell gas or start a car.
PolitiFact did an analysis of the claim that the Stimulus cost more than the Iraqi war here: http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/stat...
They concluded the claim was "Barely True" but noted several other factors that must be considered. It's worth reading.
The USA spends more on the military than all the rest of the world's countries combined.
Where is the enemy?
Before President Eisenhower left office, he warned the American people about the threat of the growing military defense complex, and he also warned us about the Demagogues such as McCarthy.
We should have listened!
gbigs. That estimate does not include payments in the future to our maimed soldiers of this for-profit George Bush war. It does not include the replacement of used materiel (tanks, planes, etc) which used up operating hours.
The Stimulus Act kept us from falling into the abyss of a second great depression. While maybe not the most efficiently implemented, it was money well spent.
Mred,
Canada and other European countries have been able to do so because the U.S. subsidizes their militaries with our own.
PS, there are entirely more effective ways of running social security and welfare than the way we currently operate them.
The New Yorker article about the Koch's was shoddy journalism:
http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/25/the-of...
http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/24/in-whi...
http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/31/the-co...
Return on investment from the $813 billion in stimulus spending:
Roads, bridges, teachers, energy efficiency, etc., and the indirect expenditures and new household income rippling back thru the US economy.
Return on investment from the $750 billion spent on the Iraq invasion:
4,416 American dead, a now unrestrained Iran with nukes (whoops!), and zero dollars rippling back thru the US economy (excluding the defense contractors, of course).
Byorn Lomberg did not make an about face on climate change - the Guardian engaged in shoddy journalism by misrepresenting Lomberg's past and current positions on climate change and what to do about it.
1) He's always believed in man-made global warming
2) He's always believed there are solutions to save the planet
3) He's been critical of dumb ideas like Kyoto protocol, carbon rationing and mag lev trains which he believes will do next to nothing will costing hundreds of trillions of dollars when there are other problems far more important to fight (like AIDS)
4) He is one of the few rational voices within the environmentalist movement.
Example: some people want to stop global warming to save polar bears. Lomberg says if you want to save polar bears then outlaw the hunting of polar bears - 250 times as many polar bears die from hunting than they do because they die stranded on an iceberg...
http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/01/skepti...
Open Range,
How exactly does the War in Iraq have no indirect ripples through our own economy? It does, and it just shows how this line of thinking is more junk economics.
The stimulus has about as much return on investment as the Iraq war - and that is 0 - maybe even negative...
patsy; just throw figures at it, it'll go away.
gbigs. CBO is a present count..does not include the future costs. Remember, your neocon friends said that the war would pay for itself!
The cost of a war does not end when the troops return home. Only a fool believes so.
notacon, did you just call Obama a fool?
They will take away your little liberal book for printing things like that. Be careful.
Gibby said....
"The stimulus has about as much return on investment as the Iraq war - and that is 0 - maybe even negative...'
Sorry but you are wrong, Of course, I would be surprised if you said anything differently...
gbigs said....
"In short, Harry Reid has enlisted kids to spy and to dig dirt on Sharron.
This is supposed to be a professional. In fact, Harry is a miserable, failed, lead Democrat."
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Stop it...stop it....stop it!
All that laughing is making my side hurt. Where in the world do you come up with all the crap that you write?
Do you work for FIXED NEWS? Maybe right-wing talk radio?
The military industrial complex is the "tail wagging the dog."
Eisenhower could see what was coming down the line when he was president. That's why he warned us about the growth and influence of the military industrial complex....
We need to cut our military budget big time... Clinton did just that and that's one reason he was able to balance the budget. We currently have enough "fire power" to destroy the world several time over......
Militarily we're like an elephant killing an ant....
We need to require Japan to spend more of their own money on their defense. They can afford to do that...
Of course they would need to change their constitution in order to do that but that can be done....
We need to encourage them to "tweak" the Mac Arthur Constitution... It has served the Japanese well, but it's time to change parts of it, allowing the Japanese to up grade and enlarge their military for defense purposes...
We also need to have less of a military presence in Europe. World War II has been over for 60+ years and the Cold War is now history....
Germany is benefitting greatly with our military presence in that country...
They, like Japan, can spend more on their own defense....
Both Japan and Germany have democracies and need to spend more militarily...
gbigs said....
"Now we are watching Obama get ready to try for MORE spending. FDR did the same thing, jobless rate was 18% in 1939."
Yes, the jobless rate jumped to 18% in 1939 but that was because FDR started "balancing the budget" at the expense of several New Deal programs.
Once he saw what was happening, he put aside his attempt to "balance the budget" and went back to funding many of the New Deal programs that had been cut...
The peace time draft (1940) and an increase in defense spending put many Americans to work, and by the time Pearl Harbor happened in late 1941, the jobless rate had decreased to approximately 10%.
Our entry into World War II ended the Great Depression and by late 1942, early 1943, every American who wanted a job had one...
gbigs, you should talk less and read more...
notacon said....
"The cost of a war does not end when the troops return home. Only a fool believes so."
Excellent point... We will continue to spend money on the Iraq War.....care for the many vets who have returned home, and need help, (physically and mentally..) and the rebuilding/refurbishing of our military equipment that was used in the war...
Not to mention benefits for vets who will take advantage of the GI Bill and other benefits available to them...
Some equipment we will simply leave in Iraq....we have done that in every foreign war that we have fought.
El Lobo,
The stimulus has failed. Both of them. The Bush stimulus and the Obama stimulus. They failed for simple reasons.
Politicians decided what was best to buy with other people's money. That rarely works. What we got was a bunch of politicians bailing out their friends on Wall Street (the people who destroyed our wealth) and government workers (most of whom destroy wealth on a daily basis by doing jobs at higher wages, many of which robots could do for free). :P
El Lobo,
Don't forget the unemployment rate climbed during the first round of stimulus under Hoover that historical revisionists like you prefer to ignore.
And don't forget the unemployment rose again after Bush/Obama stimulus plans too.
JanK said....
"Bring back the Monroe Doctrine!"
Bring it back? Where did it go?
and before you have a cow, just think about it.
CCSD employed 7 people to rubber stamp purchase requests from principals. Why?
That is pure waste and pure wealth destruction...
Gibby said....
"Don't forget the unemployment rate climbed during the first round of stimulus under Hoover that historical revisionists like you prefer to ignore.
And don't forget the unemployment rose again after Bush/Obama stimulus plans too."
You are correct, but that had little to do with the use of the stimulus. In both cases, the economy was still in a "free fall."
In other words, people were going to continue to lose their jobs for a while, until the stimulus started to take affect and the recession/depression "bottomed out."
A stimulus package does NOT immediately decrease unemployment. It takes some time...
Why can't you see that? Oop's, I'm sorry, you don't want to see that....
Gibby said....
"CCSD employed 7 people to rubber stamp purchase requests from principals. Why?
That is pure waste and pure wealth destruction..."
Not sure what your point is...care to explain?
Gibby....
Have a cow? Why would I have a cow? I already have milk....
El Lobo
You seriously need me to explain why having 7 employees to rubber stamp and approve purchase requests from school principals is a waste of money?