http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/28/eric-cantor-dismisses-job-loss-report_n_829336.html
The Republicans are trying to pass a budget that shaves off 61 billion dollars. They're arguing that the Federal Government can't afford to spend as much as it is right now, and that this will help. The 61 billion dollars in question however, seems to be aimed largely at things the Republicans don't like, and independent analysts say that these cuts will actually harm the economy, rather that aid it (as usual with Republican budget proposals and tax plans).
This seems to me to be a purely partisan assault on what few welfare systems we have, it's political hackery. I can guarantee you the Republicans don't actually give a flying f*** about the deficit, and I can do this with simple math. The Republican's proposed "major budget cuts" are 61 billion, which sounds like a lot. The estimated Federal Budget is 3.82 trillion dollars. That is a lot. Lets do the math, $61000000000 out of $3820000000000 is about $0.0159. That means that the proposed Republican budget cuts amount to 1.6% of the total Federal Budget, heck it's only 3.7% of the budget deficit (the difference between the budget revenue through taxes and such and the total expenditures). If we cut military procurement in half, that's the number of brand spankin new toys for the military in half for the year 2011, that would save the federal goverment 68 billion dollars. That's 7 billion more than the entirety of the Republican Tax plan, and it doesn't even touch R&D, construction, energy, maintenance and operations, or the portion of the budget alloted for military personell. This is just saying "Our planes that are four generations ahead of the rest of the world can last another year." But the Republicans aren't willing to say this, for that matter, nobody is.
We've held ourselves hostage this time, the public opinion is that our extended military actions across the face of the world are necessary, but we don't want to pay for them. We're outspending ourselves at a phenomenal rate, and the politicians just want to be elected again, so they don't dare suggest scaling down everything military or raising taxes except on a rhetorical level because their opponents will chew them into small pieces and use them as fertilizer.
The sad thing is, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is basically *begging* Congress to cut military spending. But politicians don't want to be seen taking any money away from troops, even if it's R&D for fancy toys that Secretary Gates admits that the military doesn't need.
ReplyDeleteThis post was legit. Good ol' America, would rather cut social services then military budget .
ReplyDelete@ThatOneGuy0
ReplyDeletethe procurement budget for the military is actually almost double the R&D budget, cutting both in half would save approximately 106 billion dollars
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html
that's my source for the numbers btw, you'll notice Social Security is huge, but then it's got a massive payroll, and is supposed to pay for itself, it has a dedicated tax.
also, if you add the Internation Affairs budget (which includes the State Department and a ton of other stuff), the General Science budget (including NASA), and the transportation budget, you still have billions less than procurement plus R&D for the military.