I ask again: How about we cut defense spending and give the money to INFRASTRUCTURE?

Question

We're building the George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier. Last time I checked we had ten of these things. Each of them carries 85 combat jets, helicopters, AWACs style planes and so on. The carrier costs 4.5 billion dollars and 160 million a year to operate. Every aircraft on it costs 35 million dollars and up. So let's not even bother with the math. It's obvious that one less carrier battle group would pay for a LOT of infrastructure.

Lone Wolf: We're always going to be vulnerable to threats, no matter how many carrier battle groups we have. We have ten now..... this means a carrier and an enormous amount of support ships- destroyers missle cruisers subs and supply ships. There's a point of diminishing returns with this hardware.

Albert F: OK good Minnesota had a budget surplus and wasted it on bread and circuses. Stupid! What about the other states that are having a hell of a bad time now (Like Ohio where I live) and have no surpluses?? Shall we use money from schools to fix infrastructure??

Spock : raising taxes on trucks sounds like a good idea. But as far as China building a carrier battle group's being a threat that they will take over : Er we have TEN of them, as I said,and we're building an 11th. So that would be 11 to one against the Chinese.

lltrix- Right on. Fear makes the US do some odd things.

Rich- I'll be studying your links carefully. I wouldn't put it past the military/industrial/government complex. Never in US history has there been an Administration more evilly entwined with large corporate interests. If they think that we will take it let them study the French Revolution. Show me the way to the Bastille!

JPenergy - ty for that incisive answer and the quote from Madison.

Mark Hensley - TY for pointing out to us that the addiction to OIL is the root cause of all these problems.
Methinks you're right: It's a roundy-round in Iraq. Damned if we do and damned if we don't. Probably gonna be there for a long time more. THIS is the kind of thing that brought down the Roman Empire.

Answer 1

We cannot do it. We are in a protracted set of wars, Iraq and Afghanistan commiting our men and materials for at least 10 additional years. Our current military machinery has been spec for 5-7yrs of war before being replaced. In peace time assuming light use this extrapolates to 25-30 years. Currently, all of our heavy equipment is being used in the very fine sands of Iraq and the rugged mountains of Afghanistan. They are constantly being shipped and in constant use. A sniper can shoot and kill 1 thousand people in a month. Look at the frequency of use with an M16, in one month. Now imagine that same weapon being in use for 3-5 years straight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now step back and consider America's finest Abrams M1 Tank, Howitzers and other heavy artillery, whose shells, once spent must be replaced. This is just the land battle, not to mention the wear and tear on aircraft and naval equipment pressed into service. High ranking Generals have submitted a budget for repairs that are equal to rebuilding the entire Army.

It is with regret that we have a petro-chemical economy. The United States has National Security interests in the region. Unlike Vietnam, Iraq is in the richest part of this country's path to protect it's interests. Our economy is set up and rests on access to oil, like an addiction. The politically correct language is "America has a dependency on foriegn oil." Our political leadership has failed this country over the years to reduce our dependency in this area. America increasingly makes me think back to Greek Mythology about a warrior needed to win the war. Achilles. According to Greek Mythology Achille's was a magnificent warrior that grew into stories of great battles and lore that captured the oral tradition's imagination in Greek lore and thought.

I sometimes wonder, in this Fiasco, our beloved country finds itself increasingly fighting for dear life. If this Iraq war will prove to be an arrow shot with our name on it, and Afghanistan our heel. In Vietnam, our national interests were in the periphery, in this case what is strategically critical to U.S. power and soverienty is in the Middle East. Mark my words, we will be in the middle of this war for years to come. We really stepped into it.
Google the Janes Report and keep an eye on budget considerations in the Congress. Look at the numbers, then listen to the words. The numbers are a true indicator.

Answer 2

They want the infrastructure to fail so they can say Govt can't do anything right so lets put it in Private hands. This way they can continue to chop up and sell the country off to the highest bidder even if that bidder is a company from another country. This is what has been going on for some time now and has accelerated under Bush. Please see the links I'm attaching and you will see that that soon, depending upon where you live your taxes/tolls/cash is and will be going to private corporations. Also expect the price to skyrocket like they did on the phony "energy shortages" and rolling blackouts caused by Enron shutting down power plants to inflate prices.

I've also included links to a few other things (schools, water, prisons etc...) which are being sold off to private corporations but funded by tax dollars. People should be alarmed because one day they will wake up and the country won't even belong to them anymore. The plan is first to underfund and destroy publicly run institutions then blame it on "the Govt" - then sell them off to cronies or the highest bidder for a quick one time profit. Next make taxpayers - ie working class people pay 10 times more for something they used to get for less - like libraries - then if you can't afford it you don't get it - school , water energy, gas - whatever.

To answer your question - They have privatized the military as well, so the longer we stay and the worst it gets the private companies/contractors make a "killing". That's why we stay even when everyone wants out. They make money destroying the country and then again "rebuilding" it.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/view/

So - that's why they let things happen. Rich

Answer 3

Agree, how bout this pearl...

Missing Trillions
Rumsfeld Buries Admission of Missing 2+ Trillion Dollars in 9/10/01 Press Conference
On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference to disclose that over $2,000,000,000,000 in Pentagon funds could not be accounted for. Rumsfeld stated: "According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." According to a report by the Inspector General, the Pentagon cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends. 1 2

Such a disclosure normally might have sparked a huge scandal. However, the commencement of the attack on New York City and Washington in the morning would assure that the story remained buried. To the trillions already missing from the coffers, an obedient Congress terrorized by anthrax attacks would add billions more in appropriations to fight the "War on Terror."

The Comptroller of the Pentagon at the time of the attack was Dov Zakheim, who was appointed in May of 2001. Before becoming the Pentagon's money-manager, he was an executive at System Planning Corporation, a defense contractor specializing in electronic warfare technologies including remote-controlled aircraft systems. 3 4 Zakheim is a member of the Project for a New American Century and participated in the creation of its 2000 position paper Rebuilding America's Defenses which called for "a New Pearl Harbor." 5

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
James Madison
It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
James Madison

Answer 4

Yeah and why don't we just get rid of the police and firefighters too. Stop electing the clowns you usually vote for, and the problem will be solved.

By the way if you were really informed, you would know the state of Minnesota posted a budget surplus the last couple of years. The Twins have a new stadium and the Vikings have one in the works. Looks to me like the politicians would rather waste money and fund "pet" projects than to fix the infrastructure anyway.

Answer 5

Good luck!. all this unnecessary military crap is going to bankrupt our country. More and more money is being thrown away on this kind of stuff and for what? It's going to be useless when fighting terrorism.
I've been saying for a long time that this money for defense spending should be cut from the military corporate complex and put into repairing and rebuilding our own infrastructure and then we pull our troops from Iraq and have them work doing the repairs or rebuild. It would be our own marshal plan. They could also help build new schools that are so badly needed in this country. My god, the money that we could save and the kind of positive things our military could be doing for our own people. What an example that would set for the rest of the world.

Answer 6

A very wise man once said "The best way to have peace is to always be prepared for war." and more prepared than our enemies are. That's for sure in these uncertain days. There has always been enough money for war machinery and we should NOT cut it short just to appease the whiners. (And I'm not calling you one, either.) Infrastructure money gets eaten up by stupid and unimportant environmental causes ~ "clean the air", "clean the water", "use ethonol", squawk, squawk, squawk, ad nauseum. Air and water are cleaner now than in the last 150 years yet petty worriers still whine. This stuff costs big money, costs loss of good jobs by closing factories thus loosing tax revenues, makes fuels and power exorbiently expensive, makes power cost more by requiring unnecessary 'scrubbers' on smokestacks, needless regulations which costs way too much to monitor and inspect. So, more important things (like bridges & highways for instance) get passed over, underfunded, neglected, then when unnecessary tragedies happen, the whiners start shreiking uselessly, ignoring the fact that their petty gripes suck money away from the really important things. If the military is castrated, our enemies will run roughshod over us and don't think they won't. The only reason they haven't is because we are a strong nation militarily. Terrorists lay in wait for us to drop our guard.China, with it's newfound riches, is spending trillions building it's military. North Korea is shaking nuclear missiles in our face. Islamic fundamentalists are terrorizing half the world. Even little Venezuela is preparing to confront America.
But put the blame for wasted money where blame is due, namely cowards and whiners within our borders. Illegal immigrants don't deserve hyper-expensive health care, social security moneys, jobs Americans need, etc., etc. Environmental fiascos costing billions of wasted $$$$$, global warming junk science draining resources (spelled $$$$$$$$), blah, blah, blah. This isn't a rant, it's the TRUTH! The money is there, it's just being wasted trying to appease squawking busibodies and algorism and trying to create a nanny state that believes we can't be trusted.

Answer 7

how's your Chinese?

more importantly, do you look Chinese too?


by what is not a coincidence, China has begun building both a carrier battlegroup and the means to sink our battlegroups.

it looks like they mean to conquer Taiwan by plain force.
and, unless we're able and willing to stop them, whatever else they want in the Pacific [Australia?].

***
there is no shortage of funds for infrastructure .. what there is a shortage of is political will to levy the user taxes that should be the source of construction and repair dollars.

When did Congress ever propose raising taxes on heavy trucks? [heavy trucks, according to the NHTSI, account for some 60% of the wear on our highways by pay only 40% of the highway taxes].

Answer -- never. Both parties are too busy sucking up to the freaking truck drivers and their unions.


you can tilt back toward the center whenever you want.

:-)

Answer 8

The money for infrastructure is already there. If your state is like mine the politicians spend the money building arenas and river walks and things of that nature instead of repairing roads and bridges. My state has improved but it still wastes money.

Answer 9

Ever wonder how do we cut it when we don't have the peace on earth goodwill to men for the good of mankind on planet earth.
Solve the mess out there.
Then you can have all the money for the infrastructure that you want.

Answer 10

How about makeing the big oil people an the 200,000 income pay there fair amount of taxes this would work well