Quote:
Originally Posted by KSig RC
I think, somewhat bizarrely, that military budget issues are kind of in the same boat as bank bailouts and health care: the issues are so deep and the structure so entwined with everything else that it would be very difficult to scrap it and start over with something more efficient and effective (even if that would be the ideal solution).
So we're kind of left polishing the turd that is the military/industrial complex. I can't imagine there isn't a bunch of fat in the military budget (really, in any 800+ billion budget), but I'm not sure what can be done about it.
As far as the article: it's kind of like saying more Americans die of poverty than from falling off cliffs, since there just aren't that many military deaths in comparison to the larger population (even in wartime), but I hadn't seen the argument put to the numbers like this before so it's definitely interesting. I'm sure throwing money at poverty problems isn't the ideal solution, but (ironically) if I had the actual answers to the deep-rooted causes of poverty, I'd be a richer man.
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I'd like to see some way to divorce the politics from the budgeting. I know it's impossible, but we shouldn't be fighting to keep bases or planes purely on the grounds that it affects someone's constituency or major donors. I think that's a bad way to run the military budget.
I think there are people who do know where that fat is, and they're either not interested, or hamstrung from the politics or not in the position to affect it.
The numbers are what made the point strike home for me, and I know there's not a single answer or an easy answer, but surely there's something we can do differently. Honestly I find it appalling that people in this country die of hunger or because they couldn't afford medical treatment. Poverty shouldn't be the reason people die. Despite the fact that it happens the world over, we actually have the resources to do something about it.
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