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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (175450)	9/26/2003 8:10:42 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578335

"What standard due you use too determine too high or not too high?" The current level. That doesn't answer the question. If I take that statement literally 1 cent less the current level would not be too high, and the current level would always be too high no matter what the circumstances. I know that you consider the current level too high. I'm asking what criteria you use to determine what is too high and what is not too high. I can not tell you how much I am tired of hearing that "the most important part of our gov't" is military spending/protecting its citizens. Through 4 years of undergrad with a dual major in pol sci. and bus., and 2 years of a grad. program as well as my adult years in LA, and I never once heard that statement until I came to this thread. I realize that its central to the thesis of conservative ideology but it was not the central theme for the founding of this nation. Its central to the existence of any nation. You don't have nations without armies or at least well armed police forces, or foreign protection that continue to exist. And if you rely on foreign protection sometimes you become a colony or part of the empire of the foreign country that used to protect you. Even smaller scale political organizations like city states or even tribes needed armed force under their command to continue. If the political entity doesn't have armed force under its control it will not long remain in existence. That is why armed force is the most basic requirement for a country. It wouldn't be taught in business or even poli sci because poli sci assumes the continued existence of the country. It might be taught in history classes but probably not directly. It would definitely be something you would pick up studying military history. And many people expect much more from their gov't than military intervention and/or protection. True, most people want meat or veggies on their sandwich, maybe both and maybe some spread. But without the bread you don't have the sandwich. That isn't an argument against including the meat. IMO keeping the peace is just one of several vitals areas that requires the gov't's participation IF you can't keep the peace and otherwise control things pretty soon you no longer have a government. Most people want air conditioning and nice seats and radios in their car, but they need the engine more. They need the engine more then even something like turn signals or even doors. The turn signals are vital in the sense that they are legally required and can also help avoid accidents but you still have a functioning care without them. You still don't get my point. You don't have much of a point. there is Discretionary and Mandatory. Under Mandatory, there are at least three budget line items, maybe 4. Under Discretionary, there is just defense and other. Defense is half of all Discretionary spending and roughly 1/4 of our budget if you exclude interest payments for the national debt. Which doesn't add up to a point but rather detail. Unless your point is "there is Discretionary and Mandatory." And sure that is correct but irrelevant to the original point about non-military spending growing more then military spending. I understand the distinction between discretionary and mandatory but I don't find it a useful distinction, except as a rhetorical device to try to reduce the apparent size and growth of federal non-military spending. One fourth of our revenues go to defense spending at a time when we have no real sovereign enemy. Its disgusting! Less then a fourth, and nothing really disgusting about it. That percentage is lower then the level at almost any point in the last 60 years. Also a better measure of how well we can afford defense spending is as a percentage of GDP. By that measure its less then half of the level that existed for much of the cold war. Basically we cut the burden of what we spend on defense in half. You might argue that we should have cut out perhaps 2/3rds instead but I don't see how only cutting 1/2 of the burden makes it disgusting. Tim, Bush has asked for $87 billion this year and Cheney said last week that its very likely they'll be back in for roughly $90 billion in the first half of next year. Rummy has asked that approval of the $87 billion be passed by Congress by next Tuesday. I suspect that's because the initial outlay of $80 billion is nearly gone. Its not even a full year yet. Three hundred billion looks very doable and $400 billion very possible Out of the $300 to $400 bil a large part is not military spending, and a big chunk of what is military spending has already been spent (either actually budgeted and spent or the weapons have been used up and are being replaced now and would be replaced even if we were out of Iraq tomorrow afternoon). Continue military operations in Iraq, above and beyond what we would have paid for the soldiers if they where sitting on some army base in the US, probably amounts to more like $100bil, maybe $150bil. The rest is either sunk cost or non-military. Tim

To: tejek who wrote (175450)	9/27/2003 8:43:25 AM
From: brian1501	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578335

I can not tell you how much I am tired of hearing that "the most important part of our gov't" is military spending/protecting its citizens. Through 4 years of undergrad with a dual major in pol sci. and bus., and 2 years of a grad. program as well as my adult years in LA, and I never once heard that statement until I came to this thread. There are not many educational institutions that teach common sense. Self preservation is the #1 function of ANY nation. There are, of course, other functions as well, but what's the point in them if your nation ceases to exist? Brian

To: tejek who wrote (175450)	9/27/2003 9:02:36 AM
From: steve harris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578335

re:Through 4 years of undergrad with a dual major in pol sci. and bus., and 2 years of a grad. program as well as my adult years in LA, the taxpayers got screwed since you probably didn't pay a penny for it.....