Who is for cutting the US defense budget?

[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.

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

Who has the capability to invade us?

Several have the capability to invade us. None have the capability to actually defeat us by invasion. For now. But look how many want to cut the military. No one knows what the future may bring.

 

[rightwinger]

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?

Several have the capability to invade us. None have the capability to actually defeat us by invasion. For now. But look how many want to cut the military. No one knows what the future may bring.

OK

Which nations have the Navy and logistics capability to make a landing and then provide support from 3000 miles away? Remember Normandy? It took thousands of landing craft. Who has the capability of launching such an attack on the US?

 

[SFC Ollie]

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

Who has the capability to invade us?

Several have the capability to invade us. None have the capability to actually defeat us by invasion. For now. But look how many want to cut the military. No one knows what the future may bring.

OK

Which nations have the Navy and logistics capability to make a landing and then provide support from 3000 miles away? Remember Normandy? It took thousands of landing craft. Who has the capability of launching such an attack on the US?

None by themselves. I can't say that will be true in 20 years.

 

[rightwinger]

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.

Good answer......The Arabs and the Muslims are our threat

Why do we need 16 carriers and 600 ships to fight them?

Where would you deploy 22 Divisions of soldiers to fight the Arab threat?

 

[QUENTIN]

Basically, I'm just too damned old and set in my ways to learn a new language. We must maintain a strong military.

A strong military, even the strongest in the world, does not require nearly as much as we spend. China's army is more than twice the size of ours, also has nukes, advanced weaponry, military technology, equipment, etc. We overspend outrageously and have privatized our defense and offense at an incredible expense to ourselves. Profit should not be a motive or even aspect of engaging in warfare.

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.

What? Are you serious? It should be at least 10% if you had your druthers 15-20% , and you think it's 5%? Jesus dude, get educated. It's more than 20% as is of all federal spending, and over half of discretionary spending, over half of all our tax dollars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MnYI3_FRbbQ/S17GGwQ1TrI/AAAAAAAACSY/X2bs4rpZpWU/s1600-h/spending.png

You already have more than you could ever wish for, half the defense spending of the entire rest of the planet and more than 10 times the closest spender (with an Army double our size), a quarter of all spending (how could any educated American adult think it was 5%?) and half of all discretionary spending, the single biggest chunk of our spending, yet it's not enough for you.

While the DOD and military get more than $660 billion this year, Homeland Security and the FBI's Counter-Terrorism departments, the former being what the Constitution actually calls for in defense and is actual defense (protecting our country, rather than offense in waging war in other countries) and the latter being the way to prevent terrorist plots, get only $44 billion and a mere $2.6 billion respectively.

If the goal is not an enormous and highly profitable military-industrial complex, permanent militarization of America and a state of perpetual war, but rather the protection of U.S. citizens from harm, we would massively reduce the military budget, weapons acquisition and maintenance, etc. and focus on protecting the homeland, border security, and intelligence based counter-terrorism.

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.

Good answer......The Arabs and the Muslims are our threat

Why do wee need 16 carriers and 600 ships to fight them?

Where would you deploy 22 Divisions of soldiers to fight the Arab threat?

The way to protect ourselves from terrorism is by providing for strong NATIONAL defense, protecting our borders from infiltration and attack, not putting boots on the ground in a bunch of foreign countries and creating more enemies of the U.S. than we could ever capture or kill.

 

[QUENTIN]

Just want to reiterate how funny it is that the Retired Gunny Sergeant who paints himself as some kind of military tough guy with an intimate knowledge of how things really are in war and defense thought that the defense budget was 5% of the federal budget and wanted it to be 10% or in his ideal world 15-20%, when in fact it's 23%, higher than he even suggested while complaining it needed to be raised. Way to undermine your credibility.

 

[SFC Ollie]

Just want to reiterate how funny it is that the Retired Gunny Sergeant who paints himself as some kind of military tough guy with an intimate knowledge of how things really are in war and defense thought that the defense budget was 5% of the federal budget and wanted it to be 10% or in his ideal world 15-20%, when in fact it's 23%, higher than he even suggested while complaining it needed to be raised. Way to undermine your credibility.

So he isn't up on finance questions. Still bet he knows more about the military than most do on this board. I have things I stay out of because of my limited knowledge in certain areas. Might be a good Idea for a lot of people here.

 

[rightwinger]

Just want to reiterate how funny it is that the Retired Gunny Sergeant who paints himself as some kind of military tough guy with an intimate knowledge of how things really are in war and defense thought that the defense budget was 5% of the federal budget and wanted it to be 10% or in his ideal world 15-20%, when in fact it's 23%, higher than he even suggested while complaining it needed to be raised. Way to undermine your credibility.

So he isn't up on finance questions. Still bet he knows more about the military than most do on this board. I have things I stay out of because of my limited knowledge in certain areas. Might be a good Idea for a lot of people here.

16 Carrier groups?

22 Army Divisions?

600 Ship Navy?

And he is supposed to know more than people who never served?

 

[QUENTIN]

Just want to reiterate how funny it is that the Retired Gunny Sergeant who paints himself as some kind of military tough guy with an intimate knowledge of how things really are in war and defense thought that the defense budget was 5% of the federal budget and wanted it to be 10% or in his ideal world 15-20%, when in fact it's 23%, higher than he even suggested while complaining it needed to be raised. Way to undermine your credibility.

So he isn't up on finance questions. Still bet he knows more about the military than most do on this board. I have things I stay out of because of my limited knowledge in certain areas. Might be a good Idea for a lot of people here.

It's far more than an issue of "finance questions." He had a fundamental belief that we didn't spend nearly enough on defense. That the budget needed to be doubled, or in his ideal world, tripled or quadrupled. Indeed, he labeled our current spending "a fucking joke." In his mind, we were grossly underfunding defense and needed to step it up, weren't prioritizing defense spending and that bothered him.

In reality of course, not only is defense spending far more than the 5% he believed it to be, it's ironically even more than the top rate he suggested it would be in a perfect world. In other words, he had no idea that in fact we do spend an incredible, exorbitant amount on defense and his bitching, and the whole world view that produced it, is profoundly misinformed and baseless. In a subject he pretended expertise to, arguing specifically how many ships and divisions we needed, he actually had no idea what he was talking about and that's quite telling and really speaks to his lack of credibility.

 

[Vast LWC]

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

Word, China LOVES the fact that we spend so much on our military.

 

[Vast LWC]

Several have the capability to invade us. None have the capability to actually defeat us by invasion. For now. But look how many want to cut the military. No one knows what the future may bring.

If by "invade us" you mean attack Hawaii or Alaska, before we blew them away.

Our defense spending is 6 times as much as China, our nearest competition, and if China up and decided to invade us, we would completely annihilate their entire nation with our giant stock of ICBMs.

If China, North Korea, and Iran all got together and somehow defeated our massive navy and air force to the point where they could land troops, we'd still destroy them, and that's if we didn't just Nuke their capitals.

 

[Vast LWC]

Just want to reiterate how funny it is that the Retired Gunny Sergeant who paints himself as some kind of military tough guy with an intimate knowledge of how things really are in war and defense thought that the defense budget was 5% of the federal budget and wanted it to be 10% or in his ideal world 15-20%, when in fact it's 23%, higher than he even suggested while complaining it needed to be raised. Way to undermine your credibility.

Hey man, think about this for a second...

If he thinks 10% of the budget is a good level for us to be spending on defense, then who are we to argue?

That's be, what, a 60% cut? Works for me.

 

[Vast LWC]

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.

SN's? Seriously?

WTF?