Republicans are worried about the deficit....should we drastically cut back military spending?
We arguably spend well over 1 TRILLION a year (like 1.5 T actually) on the department of defense, but the official number (not counting wars and programs billed elsewhere) is somewhere around 700 BILLION dollars.
Should we close all our foreign bases, and cut back spending to a fraction....to what we'd need just to defend our borders?
2009-03-29T19:29:04Z
"provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare"
Yes - DEFEND....DEFEND (look that word up in a dictionary...Okinawa is not part of the USA, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, etc etc and on and on is not part of the USA)
General welfare......would definitely count the HEALTH CARE OF EVERY AMERICAN though.
Me....US Army Veteran - 1991 - 1994
Anonymous2009-03-29T19:25:00Z
Favorite Answer
I think the Republicans are more concerned in cutting out the pork, rather then the men and women that defend your sissyass.
Since national defense is the number ONE job of the federal government and it's only about one fifth of the total budget I really don't think we need to cut that. Clinton kept cutting defense spending, closing bases, telling people who wanted to re-enlist that they weren't needed then we were attacked and we needed to rebuild the military. That takes funding. Healthcare is NOT the responsibility of the federal government. It doesn't fall under the umbrella of GENERAL welfare. That is INDIVIDUAL welfare. If the feds would stay out of things that are NOT constitutionally their responsibility they wouldn't have to keep stealing so much of our money. Healthcare wouldn't be so expensive. People would have more money and if they got their priorities straight they would be able to pay for their own healthcare. If they put off buying that ipod and cable T.V. they could afford their own healthcare. Also the demand for those things wouldn't be as high and that would drive down the prices. It's called the FREE market and it would work if the politicians were statesmen and knew their place. That's the way it was before the Democrats decided that this should be a socialist country. That's the way it was before the government became our mommy.
I would say a national defense is vital to establishing world peace and economic security. I wouldn't say cut back on military spending, but get government lobbyist out of military spending. That would reduce the cost of the military and enable our troops to do there jobs
We cut defense in the '90's as part of Clinton's virtual surplus. I guess since you are not in the Army now, it would not affect you that much. How would effect the people that are still serving. Isolationism did not work coming into WW II, did it? This is why Generals and Admirals run the Military. I think I'll go with their opinion.
The Republican Party would keel over if we cut their precious defense spending.
Nah...
They have to have a *reason* for their bloated defense budgets.
Things like...invading the wrong country on fixed and flawed intelligence...um...tripling defense spending on those cool and nifty F-22 Raptors (which come with a $35B dollar price tag--each)..spending money on outdated STAR WARS initiatives...and missile defense spending which couldn't shoot down a derelict satellite--let alone an active enemy missile.