Who is for cutting the US defense budget?

[Claudette]

Totally on board with it.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could still be carried out (not that I'm in favor of that...just sayin') while still reducing DoD spending, if we started closing bases around the globe that have outlived their military usefulness.

Super idea. Bring our boys home from Europe. Why the hell are we still in Europe anyway.??The next time somebody goosesteps across Europe, let em handle it themselves. If we weren't so busy defending everyone the DOD budget wouldn't need to be so large. Let em take care of themselves.

They should pull our troops out of everywhere they aren't needed for this countries national security.

I am all for budget cuts in DOD as long as we give our military what it needs to defend us and our country.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Just a thought that the US spends more on defense than the next 10 militaries combined. With SS & Medicare going broke, and the budget deficit so large, we may need to reduce the military budget until we get a surplus.

IMHO the US should not bear the expense of a world-class military when the other countries elect to spend resources on socialist programs instead of defense. Its time to balance the military spending and social programs more evenly.

List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Defense is ACTUALLY in the Constitution. You know one of the ACTUAL powers Congress has? Not one made up by stretching the Commerce clause to cover anything and everything.

My personal opinion is that National Defense should receive at LEAST 10 percent of the Budget and if I had my druthers 15 to 20 percent.

The Army is to small it needs to grow by at least 12 Divisions or more. That would be at least 36 Brigades and for every Combat soldier you need about 10 support people. I would activate the 4th Marine Division and create the 5th as the reserve Division. Return the 2 missing Regiments from the 3rd as well.

The Navy needs at least 16 Aircraft Carriers and only has 11. Go BACK to the 600 combat ship Navy. Increase the Airforce as well. More fighter commands and more Bomber commands. And of course more transport commands.

The Coast Guard needs about a 400 percent increase as well. Border patrol should fall under Defense and should be tripled at least.

What is defense now? 5 percent? What a fucking joke. Ohh and wars do not count as part of the annual budget. Pay for those separately.

 

[Gadawg73]

The reality of defense is that if it does not work at any given time against any type of threat then it is over, done with, historeee. Accordingly, an over the top defense mentality, strategy and policy slanted towards a it is better to have enough and more than enough than just a hair below enough is always necessary to survive. Better to put $$$ in defense and maybe be wrong than any other government program. Period. History has shown the true cost of lives when we underfunded defense.
If my neighbor or a member of my family or any American is in the military I dam sure want the very best for them in terms of equipment, pay and benefits. Let our enemies drive the Yugo tanks.
The real problem in the defense budget is how many, not all, veterans take advantage of disability ratings and post service health benefits. I am not talking about disabled vets that can not walk or combat injuries. I know I will take flack for this but it is just fact. It is not only military but it is fire and police also. I wish I had a nickel for every former police, fire and vet that has wanted a job from me and is now getting full disability. Nothing much wrong with them at all. They need to get paid under the table if they are fire or police yet the vets can work with no problems. We need to DOUBLE the benefits for those vets that are truly service related disabled and can not work. Those that can work and had a broken arm because of a training jump 20 years should not be able to hike their retirement pay dramatically with a disability claim 20 years after it happened. This is a large area of cost, tens of billions in unfunded costs that are escalating rapidly.
Sure, there are weapons systems that maybe we do not need. But it is better to err on the side of going ahead and building them than not having them. There is no way to know for sure the weapons capabilities of our enemies given the dismal state of our intelligence the last 30 years. And there are politicians from both parties that want to keep a base in their district that is not needed but the bottom line is when it comes to defense I want the best there is. Our military men and women deserve the best equipment money can buy and full support with lifetime benefits if they devote their life to service.
After all, it is US that they are serving. We owe them no less than the very best at all times.

 

[rightwinger]

Just a thought that the US spends more on defense than the next 10 militaries combined. With SS & Medicare going broke, and the budget deficit so large, we may need to reduce the military budget until we get a surplus.

IMHO the US should not bear the expense of a world-class military when the other countries elect to spend resources on socialist programs instead of defense. Its time to balance the military spending and social programs more evenly.

List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Defense is ACTUALLY in the Constitution. You know one of the ACTUAL powers Congress has? Not one made up by stretching the Commerce clause to cover anything and everything.

My personal opinion is that National Defense should receive at LEAST 10 percent of the Budget and if I had my druthers 15 to 20 percent.

The Army is to small it needs to grow by at least 12 Divisions or more. That would be at least 36 Brigades and for every Combat soldier you need about 10 support people. I would activate the 4th Marine Division and create the 5th as the reserve Division. Return the 2 missing Regiments from the 3rd as well.

The Navy needs at least 16 Aircraft Carriers and only has 11. Go BACK to the 600 combat ship Navy. Increase the Airforce as well. More fighter commands and more Bomber commands. And of course more transport commands.

The Coast Guard needs about a 400 percent increase as well. Border patrol should fall under Defense and should be tripled at least.

What is defense now? 5 percent? What a fucking joke. Ohh and wars do not count as part of the annual budget. Pay for those separately.

Where is the threat?

 

[Xenophon]

The only 'need' for a larger ground force is if you intend to fight wars over seas, where we should not be.

 

[Care4all]

Cutting a budget, only makes one make smarter decisions....I know that sounds strange, but this is how it works in the private sector and I see no reason why we should not take this approach with our defense budget and all of our budgets that involve buying things.

When I was a buyer, it was common that each year, I was given a planned increase, with less money to buy the merchandise for this planned increase in sales....in other words, they wanted me to improve my Turn Rate and to get my added sales in that manner....(sell more of what you got on hand, maintain a lower average inventory for the projected sales)

And every year, I said to myself, these people are frickin nuts! How could they expect me to have an increase, when they are giving me less money to spend on merchandise to sell? And every year, I had to get smarter and smarter with my OTB, (Open to Buy dollars)...focus more on purchases of things that were selling at a faster rate, and kill the items I had bought that sold at a slower rate....buy more of what I had planned to advertise or promote, and buy less of the fru fru (the fluff)....these were very hard decisions to make and a lot of analysis had to be done before I placed the first dollar....because I knew I had less money to spend....

The same can be done with our Defense/Military budget....and we can STILL have the best Defense in the world....imo....we just will become smarter in our spending, because spending is limited.

 

[SFC Ollie]

The only 'need' for a larger ground force is if you intend to fight wars over seas, where we should not be.

Better to fight overseas than in the USA. At least it is better for us. I mean if we have to of course.

 

[Xenophon]

The only 'need' for a larger ground force is if you intend to fight wars over seas, where we should not be.

Better to fight overseas than in the USA. At least it is better for us. I mean if we have to of course.

When the Taliban get in some rowboats and arrive off the jersey shore, I'll agree to make the army bigger.

They won't be 'here' anytime soon.

 

[rightwinger]

The only 'need' for a larger ground force is if you intend to fight wars over seas, where we should not be.

Better to fight overseas than in the USA. At least it is better for us. I mean if we have to of course.

What do you see as the threat of fighting in the USA?

Who has the capability to invade us?

 

[Mr Natural]

A lot good our massive defense spending did at stopping the 9/11 attacks.

 

[Liability]

Who is for cutting the US defense budget?

Al Qaeda.

The People's Republic of China.

The Russian Federation.

Iran.

Cuba.

Venezuela.

North Korea.

 

[Care4all]

A lot good our massive defense spending did at stopping the 9/11 attacks.

Or Pearl Harbor for that matter...
Or Timothy McVeigh and O C federal building....

 

[kyzr]

The only 'need' for a larger ground force is if you intend to fight wars over seas, where we should not be.

Better to fight overseas than in the USA. At least it is better for us. I mean if we have to of course.

When the Taliban get in some rowboats and arrive off the jersey shore, I'll agree to make the army bigger. They won't be 'here' anytime soon.

Still too many SNs here already to suit me. Obama keeps importing them under his "diversity" initiative. Its the enemy within that the DC morons don't get. Political correctness is a bad idea.

 

[SwingVoter]

Where is the threat?

there is a HUGE threat to the many DoD bureaucrats who couldn't get jobs at McDonald's if they had to compete in the private sector workforce

 

[SwingVoter]

Who is for cutting the US defense budget?

The People's Republic of China.

no they're not

their economy will surpass ours as the largest in the world within 20 years, and they won't have deficits caused in part by overfunded DoD and DHS agencies

their influence on us will not be from the military, but from being our largest creditor, we'll be at their mercy for financing terms if we keep the massive deficits going

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Just a thought that the US spends more on defense than the next 10 militaries combined. With SS & Medicare going broke, and the budget deficit so large, we may need to reduce the military budget until we get a surplus.

IMHO the US should not bear the expense of a world-class military when the other countries elect to spend resources on socialist programs instead of defense. Its time to balance the military spending and social programs more evenly.

List of countries by military expenditures - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Defense is ACTUALLY in the Constitution. You know one of the ACTUAL powers Congress has? Not one made up by stretching the Commerce clause to cover anything and everything.

My personal opinion is that National Defense should receive at LEAST 10 percent of the Budget and if I had my druthers 15 to 20 percent.

The Army is to small it needs to grow by at least 12 Divisions or more. That would be at least 36 Brigades and for every Combat soldier you need about 10 support people. I would activate the 4th Marine Division and create the 5th as the reserve Division. Return the 2 missing Regiments from the 3rd as well.

The Navy needs at least 16 Aircraft Carriers and only has 11. Go BACK to the 600 combat ship Navy. Increase the Airforce as well. More fighter commands and more Bomber commands. And of course more transport commands.

The Coast Guard needs about a 400 percent increase as well. Border patrol should fall under Defense and should be tripled at least.

What is defense now? 5 percent? What a fucking joke. Ohh and wars do not count as part of the annual budget. Pay for those separately.

Where is the threat?

Arabs are the threat. Muslim run nations that sponsor terror are the threat. Iran working towards a Nuke is a threat. There are several more Governments that need to be dismantled in the middle east.

Our borders are wide open they need to be shut down. Our ports and coasts are wide open they need to be protected.

 

[potter 58]

HEY Sarg, I'm all for a strong military but no where did I see you mention cutting the waste and we all know they do plenty of that! maybe you did but I could have missed it

 

[SFC Ollie]

HEY Sarg, I'm all for a strong military but no where did I see you mention cutting the waste and we all know they do plenty of that! maybe you did but I could have missed it

I have no problem with cutting waste. I would love to see many of these contracts for building things too. I was fortunately in on a conference once where certain defense contractors tried to tell us what we needed. Fortunately we did get what we needed, our version not theirs. They weren't real happy. I won't mention GTE's name.

 

[xotoxi]

We should focus all of our defense money on diplomacy and weapons of mass destruction.

If the diplomacy fails, we simply annihilate the uncooperative country with the touch of a button.

 

[Xenophon]

Better to fight overseas than in the USA. At least it is better for us. I mean if we have to of course.

When the Taliban get in some rowboats and arrive off the jersey shore, I'll agree to make the army bigger. They won't be 'here' anytime soon.

Still too many SNs here already to suit me. Obama keeps importing them under his "diversity" initiative. Its the enemy within that the DC morons don't get. Political correctness is a bad idea.

Either way you can't use the army against them, its illeagal.