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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (198288)	8/23/2012 1:25:39 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541503

I'd rather see the military take the disproportional whacking it deserves. It's gotten WAY to much of our budget pie since the end of WWII. At the end of the Cold War, Clinton announced a "peace dividend", and put forward a base closing commission. The commission came forward with a list of bases to close, EVERYONE whined as loudly as possible, (R)'s and (D)'s, and the commission went back to the drawing board. They came up with ANOTHER list of base closings, that just included the just bases made completely ludicrous by the end of the Cold War. The whining that ensued was incredible! Some districts claimed that without their military base, they'd HAVE no jobs at all - and they weren't lying! The military and the related "defense industries" have wisely spread their bases and plants into EVERY district in the country. So, some bases got closed, most didn't, and the entire idea was allowed to fall down the memory hole. But, people STILL believe we got some sort of "peace dividend". Result? We spend as much as the next ten countries combined on defense. Most of those other countries are our military ALLIES. NONE of those other countries are our military enemies. We spend seven times more than China alone, who's building it's FIRST aircraft carrier. We have eleven carrier battle groups spread across the world's oceans. If you consider our military enemies, Iran and N. Korea, we spend HUNDREDS of times more than they do! To attack us would be kissing their countries goodbye. Our military could take a 50% whacking and STILL be the dominant military on Earth, and it should. The military is America's single largest employer, directly employing 3 million people, and that doesn't even include contract employees. Wanna get rid of "big government" and fire a bunch of government employees uselessly sucking on Uncle Sam's tits? START with the military! Of all the pols, only Ron Paul even mentions any of the above. Too bad he's TOTALLY Libertarian, and would also eliminate all the good parts of government..