You can't reveal how much is spent... Fear of the unknown force and tech we have is a valuable weapon... You don't need to know everything when you are a peon.
One party consistently passes budgets that increase defense spending. The other passes budgets with flat or decreased defending spending. Is the problem is excess defense spending, why wouldn't we blame the party increasing the spending? In their latest budget battle yesterday, all the GOP Presidential candidates in the Senate - Rubio, Cruz, Paul, and Graham - proposed budget ideas that increased defense spending by approximately $300B over 10 years through supplemental appropriations that would never show up on the 10 year budget to avoid complying with sequestration requirements. 3 of them - all except Paul - did so without equivalent cuts anywhere else, despite some of them being amongst the loudest voices demanding lower spending and fighting debt ceiling increases and the like. Paul cut all sorts of domestic spending to offset his defense increases.
Because the problem isn't solely increased defense spending, the problem in increased spending in general and both parties are equally guilty of that. If you take away from one pet project to give to another you aren't actually cutting spending, just shifting the increase elsewhere. Also, I wouldn't say Democrats pass budgets, the last time a normal budget resolution was passed (before the one passed today by the Republican controlled congress) was 6 years ago.
The post I was responding to was, in fact, agreeing that the problem was defense spending ("The military industrial complex is alive and well and has its tentacles in many many pockets."). As is the issue most people are discussing in this thread. That does not mean there aren't other, separate problems though. That said, the difference between building a tank and building a bridge is that the bridge contributes to economic growth not just by being built, but in that it's actually used in the economy. Building military equipment primarily to create jobs is a horribly wasteful use of money. Infrastructure and other long-term investments (scientific research, education, etc) all provide a return on the money. A budget resolution is a meaningless document as far as determining what actually gets spent. Spending bills that authorize money are the only thing that matters.
I would love to see the defense budget cut in half over the next decade, but no politician is winning any office on that platform.
Not just pork to the home districts, my point was ( and I know I am not qualified or informed enough to render a real opinion)... US defense spending is what supports The Dollar as the worldwide curency and the US Treasury Bond the unassailable repository or world wealth, always desired and never devalued. This military strenght is what makes the US Dollar a fiat currency where the US can effectively print all it wants and never risk insolvency. The dollar is distributed so widely around the world, that even though we are printing huge amounts anounts of them, that should produce price inflation, we aren't seeing any inflation of note within our borders. So what looks like massive deficit spending on the military actually gives the US strenght and liquidity and allows our economy to function so that the citizens are relatively wealthy despite not manufacturing wealth (value added products). The US actually manufactures dollars that derive their value from military strenght. I don't know if you could ever put a value on it, or demonstate it, or show how the overall wealth of our society would fare either way. It would take some post-doctoral freakenomics to approach it. But there is definetly a wealth securing component to US military spending that makes it more valuable than it seems. Major? Northside? Economists?
Not going to dispute that since I don't know enough about it. But, how much more does the US have to spend than the 2nd highest spender (or top 10-20 combined) to keep that strength? Spoiler
More total junk at the cost of 10 billion dollars. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-billion-missile-defense-system-120000779.html
Even though, as already mentioned, I would love to see the defense budget reduced, I don't really see a problem here. The money spent on the Sea Based X-band radar shouldn't be considered a waste if the technology is working reasonably well, as MDA's Lehner claims in the article. As for the other projects, losing $8 billion over the course of a decade while trying to come up with a completely new technology to stop already launched missiles doesn't seem like such a bad waste. It's a really difficult problem, one that's definitely worth solving, and there are going to be a lot of losses before they find something that works. The LA Times writer quoted at the end suggests money would have been better spent on land-based radars, but those aren't really solving the same problem. Radars will tell you when something is coming, but they don't help you neutralize the threat, which was the purpose of the Airborne Laser, Kinetic Energy Interceptor, and Multiple Kill Vehicle. That's like telling a guy who wants a gun for protection in the event of home invasion that he should just add more sensors to his home security system instead, you're not offering a reasonable replacement for what he wants.
The defense budget/military spending is also a form of foreign aid... The US gives military assistance of some kind to over 150 countries. Take the middle east for example. Mostly all of those countries (and I'm willing to bet all of them) over there received or is receiving some type of military aid from the US. The US is also in the business of selling military equipment as well.
In addition, nearly all military aid given to foreign countries are given in the form of equipment produced by American defense contractors.
It's the old "Clinton didn't actually have a good economy" chestnut. Maybe we can get a "9/11 was actually Clinton's fault for not helping GWB read the August memo" thread going as well? But I digress. If George Bush the Lesser had been sitting the Iron Throne during those Clintonian years, the right would have milked that "false economy" banana for all it was worth. Not that there aren't caveats and footnotes to success and failure. But damn, how people want to believe what they believe.
And don't forget military spending on the police department. They gave them $500 million worth of equipment in 2011 alone.
Technically, that isn't additional spending, it is the DoD giving surplus equipment to the police (I know, so that they can spend more money on new equipment).
Depends on how you look at it because the DOD would know they would have a surplus and probably intended to give that surplus to the police department in the 1st place... Especially after the Patriot Act was initiated.
Lots of the surplus was generated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They only leave equipment in combat theaters for so long, but it still has useful life. I agree with you that some of this is planned obsolescence and fully agree that the DoD is little more than welfare for defense contractors.
The military industrialists and the neo-cons went into panic mode when the Cold War ended and their was talk OMG !! of a Peace Dividend. I remember it clearly. All those horrid other folks might start receiving more benefits from government spending and they might receive less. It was urgent to cut taxes on the wealthy and create a deficit to prevent this.
