The NYT presents a list of options for you to decide how to trim defense spending. As usual, it’s not quite as easy as you might think – but I still got it up over $800 billion. I like this interactive way of educating people about budget issues.
Why is it that they always make the cuts from Defense, rather than (say) the Department of Education (which hasn’t educated a single student) or the Department of Energy (which has never produced a single kilowatt-hour)? They never cut the police department when crime rates drop…
Why doesn’t the trillion dollars of entitlement spending (read: Steal From the Rich and Give to Our Cronies) ever even see a chopping block, much less get any part of it placed thereon?
How about slashing federal subsidies for ethanol? Or (even simpler) how about just getting the government out of the subsidy bizness altogether, since governments shouldn’t be deciding which businesses win or lose anyway?
Of course, that would require actually looking at the budget, instead of political talking points…
Maybe because the United States spends more on defense than the next 17 countries combined and that there is no real threat that justifies spending so much?
3 Responses to How Would You Cut Defense?
lam
May 19th, 2012 at 12:34 am
Most fun I had since budget hero!
Another fed up American
May 24th, 2012 at 12:58 am
Why is it that they always make the cuts from Defense, rather than (say) the Department of Education (which hasn’t educated a single student) or the Department of Energy (which has never produced a single kilowatt-hour)? They never cut the police department when crime rates drop…
Why doesn’t the trillion dollars of entitlement spending (read: Steal From the Rich and Give to Our Cronies) ever even see a chopping block, much less get any part of it placed thereon?
How about slashing federal subsidies for ethanol? Or (even simpler) how about just getting the government out of the subsidy bizness altogether, since governments shouldn’t be deciding which businesses win or lose anyway?
Of course, that would require actually looking at the budget, instead of political talking points…
Fred
May 25th, 2012 at 1:40 pm
Maybe because the United States spends more on defense than the next 17 countries combined and that there is no real threat that justifies spending so much?
Maybe because defense spending increased significantly during the two wars and now that we’re not fighting them anymore we should spend less? Defense spending is always cyclical: http://www.danalipnickas.com/images/chart_defense_spending.top.gif