|
Post by m52nickerson on Jun 10, 2009 8:33:36 GMT -5
www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/fc00.deviantart.com/fs29/f/2008/140/5/7/Death_and_Taxes__2009_by_mibi.jpgThe first link it to the site were the poster comes from. It is a neat little flash display that lets you zoom in and out and drag the poster around. The second is just a jpg of the poster. The US will spend 1.182 Trillion dollars. Of which $799 billion goes to the military, or 68%. Why so high? Well the war on terror eats up $189 billion. ......oh and that is all discretionary spending, meaning the items that are payed for out of non-specific taxes. The total budget, when you add things like social security, is over 3 trillion dollars. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid cost $1.268 trillion. The tax taken in for those items only adds up to $949 billion. So, simple question.........how do we fix it?
|
|
|
Post by skyfire on Jun 10, 2009 8:49:28 GMT -5
Wait - they still have the RAH-66 project listed in the budget?
The RAH-66 project was cancelled back in 2004/5 owing to massive cost overruns and the fact that the AH-64D had largely filled the RAH-66's niche.
I'm wondering how many other items they have in the budget there that aren't right.
|
|
|
Post by m52nickerson on Jun 10, 2009 8:57:50 GMT -5
Sky, where do you see that? I can't find it.
|
|
|
Post by skyfire on Jun 10, 2009 9:08:50 GMT -5
Sky, where do you see that? I can't find it. Second link. US Army expendiatures. Look at the very left-hand-side of the poster. It's sandwiched in between the UH-60 Blackhawk and the Striker. They list 1.079 billion as the cost of the program.
|
|
|
Post by m52nickerson on Jun 10, 2009 9:12:45 GMT -5
Your right Sky. I had the link to the 2004 budget, not the 2009 budget for the second link. I was looking at the first.
I fixed the URL.
Thanks Sky.
|
|
|
Post by The_L on Jun 10, 2009 9:59:50 GMT -5
This is disturbing. Why is so much more money going into the military than into the agencies responsible for our nation's well-being?
|
|
|
Post by Yaezakura on Jun 10, 2009 10:09:53 GMT -5
This is disturbing. Why is so much more money going into the military than into the agencies responsible for our nation's well-being? Because there's too many people who feel that accounting for 50% of the entire world's military budget just isn't enough. Having the biggest dick is great, but having a dick that can subjugate the planet is better.
|
|
|
Post by m52nickerson on Jun 10, 2009 10:38:38 GMT -5
The sick part is that much of that spending is to prepare for a full scale war.....against everyone.
The fact is the US government feels that it needs to maintain this superiority in it's military. We just can't be just better then everyone else, we have to be 100 times better then everyone else.
......and the country suffers from it.
|
|
|
Post by dasfuchs on Jun 10, 2009 10:50:41 GMT -5
This is disturbing. Why is so much more money going into the military than into the agencies responsible for our nation's well-being? Because taking care of the people is not a priority. Bombing the ever living piss christ out of any country that looks at you funny, is. That's something I always found disturbing in the last 20 years or so. So many people are fixated on "they're gonna invade us" and the like it fosters a lot of financial issues and dislike of us. America claims to be the world's beacon, the light that shines for everyone. and to show it, we can wipe your country off the map in ten minutes
|
|
|
Post by skyfire on Jun 10, 2009 11:13:32 GMT -5
The sick part is that much of that spending is to prepare for a full scale war.....against everyone. The fact is the US government feels that it needs to maintain this superiority in it's military. We just can't be just better then everyone else, we have to be 100 times better then everyone else. ......and the country suffers from it. 1. A lot of the listed expenditures for the military side of the house are for experimental weapons and equipment; the costs are high during the initial years of testing and deployment, and will (barring rather high purchase orders) flatline over the years as the move to mass-production brings costs down. 2. Contrary to popular belief, other nations aren't resting on their laurels. For example, the F-15 airframe is about as old as several posters here. The Eurofighter, a proposed new French fighter, and several of the newer MiG fighters either meet it stat-wise or are slated to exceed it; we need the F-22 just to maintain even some level of edge. 3. America's reputation as the world's policeman isn't simply something that the nation has taken upon itself; other nations tend to look at us to help provide both peacekeeping efforts and emergency relief efforts; the US military is normally the most efficient way of doing both (there's a reason why the headquarters for the US relief effort after the 2004 Tsunami was an aircraft carrier...). 4. It's assumed that the state and local levels will pick up the slack in regards to social spending, which is why the government has traditionally felt free to have large military spending. It hasn't exactly turned out that way, but that's the mentality. In all honesty, I too would like an overhaul of Congressional spending and such, especially in light of how much $$$ has been pushed through for the sake of stimulus over the past year. I would likewise appreciate more transparency in the budget process.
|
|
|
Post by Mira on Jun 10, 2009 11:21:23 GMT -5
Yeshua, toooo much military. Just cut a fraction of that spending and we could all be having healthcare right now.
|
|
|
Post by Yaezakura on Jun 10, 2009 11:21:46 GMT -5
Skyfire, you can make excuses for the military budget all you want. But you can never excuse away how the US, which accounts for approximately 5% of the world population, also accounts for over 50% of the entire world's combined military budget.
If the French are able to develop a fighter to put our current ones to shame with a budget that is absolutely DWARFED by our own, why can't we make reliable progress on a budget that's a bit less insane?
|
|
|
Post by m52nickerson on Jun 10, 2009 11:46:50 GMT -5
1. A lot of the listed expenditures for the military side of the house are for experimental weapons and equipment; the costs are high during the initial years of testing and deployment, and will (barring rather high purchase orders) flatline over the years as the move to mass-production brings costs down. Very true, development takes money. The problem is not all of those systems under development will every be needed. ....and we know that in a full scale war air power will be the biggest player. The US does need to replace the F-15 as their are many fighter that could compete with it as an air superiority fighter. With the F-22 the US has that pretty much locked up. The questionable plane for me is the F-35 Lighting II. It looks to replace the F-18 Hornet, which the newest version still have to looked at as one of the top, if not the top, multi-role fighter in the world. I won't disagree that it is important for relief efforts, but it is the peacekeeping aspect that I think we need to scale back. Will you know what they say about assuming. The problem with that may be do to the "lower tax" mantra that has been around for a long time. Some state fund only the bare minimum of programs expecting the Federal Government to make up the rest. That needs to change over time. The government should have to come out with charts like the one above. While you can get everything from the government websites, pouring though thousands of pages is very hard. Personally I would like to see some type of pay as you go approach. I also think that the military funding needs to be very closely looked at to see what is really needed, and what is not.
|
|
|
Post by m52nickerson on Jun 10, 2009 12:00:27 GMT -5
If the French are able to develop a fighter to put our current ones to shame with a budget that is absolutely DWARFED by our own, why can't we make reliable progress on a budget that's a bit less insane? To be fair the Euro was not the French government it was the company Eurofighter GmbH. They got contracts to build the plane for the British, Germans, Spanish, Australians and the Saudies. Sky may be thinking of the Dassault Rafale. Close to the Euro, but French built. Both are multi-role planes and not true Air-Superiority fighter. They are not stealth which is one reason they cost less to develop and produce.
|
|
|
Post by skyfire on Jun 10, 2009 13:52:52 GMT -5
Very true, development takes money. The problem is not all of those systems under development will every be needed. Any sort of product development is essentially shooting craps. Let's go back to the RAH-66. The thing was intended to be a "stealth" helicopter in the sense that it would combine advanced electronics with a profile and design that would make it hard to detect through electronic means. Both a scout version and a gunship version would be offered, with the difference being that the gunship would have "wings" and would thus have two extra weapons hardpoints. Thing is, the rise of the unmanned aerial drone killed the need for the scout model. This left the whole thing up to the gunship model, but when it was discovered that existing AH-64s could hypothetically be modified to produce the AH-64D (which is why the development cost on the 2004 budget was so much lower) it was the death knell for the project. Was it revolutionary? Sure. Did it help us figure out new things in regards to military aviation? Hell yeah. But did we ultimately need it? Nope. Actually, the F-35 is succeeding in pissing a lot of people off in the sense that it's meant to replace the A-10 as well as the F/A-18. While the A-10 is also old and the air frames went out of production shortly before Desert Storm, there's no way in hell that the F-35 will ever come close to boasting the sheer ordinance load, rate of fire, or loiter time as the A-10. We'll need a specially-build ground support craft to ever do that, but it just doesn't seem to be in the cards. Tell that to the rest of the world. For example, during the bit with Bosnia the US was responsible for providing 50% of the peacekeeping presence. Other peacekeeping efforts have similarly leaned heavily on the US military. I agree that it's hugged up and that there needs to be some sort of standard set in place. Thing is, a lot of what we take for granted in the civilian world was given to us by either military research or as an offshoot of military research. As such, even pay-as-you-go has issues in the sense of potentially axing too much in the way of development.
|
|