Kasz216 said:
Wait... since when? Outside of Iraq and Afganistan military spending is one of the better investments out there due to the jobs and techinological advances it creates. Actual operational budgets being countered towards overall military expendetures is disiengeious since you need such things to keep the military active and it's simply something that's done by people with an agenda. Vs research and weapons production which create a lot of jobs and... wheter we like it or not are valuable exports even after they've used up their usefulness to us. I mean one might as well bring up WW2 as an economic indicator if someoen wanted to argue the other way with an agenda. It was a lot of what got us out of WW2. FDR failing to get unemployment out of the mid 25% before that.
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No, research and weapons production in a lot of case does not create that many jobs anymore. Military R+D has become excessively bloated as time has gone on.
Here is a perfect example, the F-22 fighter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor
In August 2007, the United States Air Force signed a $5 billion, multi-year contract with Lockheed Martin that will extend production to 2011,[9] and as of 2008, F-22 Raptors are being procured at the rate of 20 per year.[4]
Estimates of people employed because of the project are in the 10,000 range. That is simply pathetic in terms of job creation pound for pound. That money would go a lot further in other sectors of the economy.
Even John McCain thinks this is a huge problem:
Not to mention, we aren't even using these things! None of our current enemies, or even enemies we have had in the last 20 years, have even fought us in air combat. Not to mention not a single one of these things has even been tested in the air!
The cost of military research has ballooned up year after year. There are instances where Congress has even paid for projects that the military explicity said they were not even going to use because Congress didn't want to hurt these private military corporations. Its absurd. If that isn't an earmark, I don't know what is.
Now here is the real kicker:
We have spent $5 Trillion on military spending and homeland security since the Iraq War began in 2002. Did you read that? $5 Trillion! People are pissing and moaning about $3 million? The military has become a fiscal black hole.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/big-government-gets-bigger/
But an examination of numerous government reports over the past few years shows the administration has had difficulties in stewarding the taxpayer money spent on the mission — a total of more than $5 trillion on wars abroad and anti-terrorism efforts at home since 2002.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
