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

To: TimF who wrote (220667)	2/24/2005 8:07:56 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1575775

re: If you want to make serious cuts in future government spending you have to go to where the money is. Its in entitlement spending, which even now is bigger than defense and eventually will be much bigger unless you are anticipating a WWII style mobilization. So... let's keep the war machine increasing (up~8% in Bush new budget, while cutting social programs), at a gross more than five times our closest competitor. And let's cut the social programs, hell, they are only our fellow citizens that will be sent into poverty. When did libertarians become so aggressive? Is the concept of self determination dead? When did Nation Building become a "libertarian" priority? John

To: TimF who wrote (220667)	2/24/2005 9:55:55 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575775

,I>Who cares? In real dollars it increased 800%. No, in nominal dollars it increased 800%. "Real dollars", is normally take to mean inflation adjusted dollars, and is a much more important consideration. Looking at nominal prices and costs gives a very distorted vision of how much things really cost. Defense spending has increased by 800% from its 1962 level.<EOM> And it needs to get smaller. (It meaning defense spending) I'm not sure what exactly you mean by needs in this context. If we can reduce it there will be some benefit but 4% of GDP isn't enough to be a major drag on the economy. If we cut spending down to the lowest amount Clinton ever spent (which is probably to low even if we end operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq) it still won't be close to enough to cover the increased spending coming from either social security and medicare. If you want to make serious cuts in future government spending you have to go to where the money is. Its in entitlement spending, which even now is bigger than defense and eventually will be much bigger unless you are anticipating a WWII style mobilization. It has nothing to do with its drag on the economy. Not everything is about the economy. There are things we could be doing if we weren't spending so much money on defense.............like not cutting Amtrak. ted