The tech boom did continue. Nasdaq added more than 2000 pts. since the tech bubble ended.
2000 points in almost a couple of decades. With a huge drop off in between. That's not "the tech bubble continued".
Your statement on the military is sadly uninformed.
Your response seems to be uniformed about the post your replying to. I wasn't objecting to military cuts (and if I was it would be a difference in opinion not "uninformed"), I pointed out the the same level of cuts could not continuously happen. The army going from 18 division to 10 was a one time thing. There was no way another 8 where going to be cut out leaving two, and it would literally be impossible for a third group of 8 to be cut. (Yes the actual number of soldiers didn't drop as much as the active divisions but it dropped a lot as well). Air force wings going from 24 to 13 was also something that couldn't be repeated. The navy went from planning for 600 ships to more like 200 (if a more modern and on the average bigger 200, more older and smaller ships were cut than larger and newer ships).
Federal spending keeps expanding. A one off cut in the military, even a larger one off cut than any US government would be likely to enact, even a literal cut to zero, can't cover for the general increase in spending by the government (which is mostly entitlement increases). I'm not saying that it was a bad idea, but that its just not enough, and can not possibly be enough, to keep the US debt from increasing, let alone to pay off all federal debt.
Defense spending keeps going down as a percentage of federal government spending.
usgovernmentspending.com
It will go down more (even with a Trump pushed defense buildup) as entitlements take over more and more of the federal budget and the economy. There just isn't a large enough percentage in defense, or even all non-interest non-entitlement spending to cover the increases in entitlements. Cut defense to zero, cut foreign aid and state department funding, and every domestic discretionary program that doesn't result in revenue to the feds (don't cut the IRS), put all tax rates back where Clinton had them or a little bit higher, and while doing that assume no loss of economic growth or of government revenue from any of these changes, and still you won't have enough to deal with entitlements. Every other specific change is small potatoes. You want to toss that in, or maybe it needs to be tossed in in order to get any momentum at all on restraining entitlements well then maybe it gets tossed in, but don't count on big results from it. |
