sethnintendo said:
Sure military spending isn't as high as all entitlement programs combined but it is still a big chunk (around 17-19% recently). Just take a look at the ill fated F-22 Lightning program. The program is project to cost trillions over the lifetime of the aircraft. How many bad ass planes do we need? If we canceled about a hundred of the total order you probably could feed all the homeless in USA for a decade or support other programs. Soon it will be all drones flying. There is plenty of waste in the military budget. Hell, the pentagon lost track of billions (perhaps even trillions) in the Iraq war. Don't even mention the no bid contracts to Halliburton, etc.. Pretty much USA needs to stop fucking "nation building" and focus on rebuilding its crumbling infrastructure. All that money for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could have been better spent rebuilding the USA. The wars in the middle east were nothing but a money flush down the toliet. |
A move to all drones would be a catastrophic mistake.
While modern warfare is currently different. There is nothing to suggest that there won't ever be a war against two developed nations with developed weapons.
To suggest there never will be a conventional war again is silly at worst, dangerous at best.
There is plenty to be said about keeping an edge in military technology.
As for the F22 Lightning... that's a videogame... and the F22 is one of the best modern fighter planes developed. I can only imagine you mean the F35.
Which was supposed to be a fighter better suited for onesided unconcentional warfare that could still fight in the skies. It essentially was supposed to just be exactly what you want. A fighter meant for more modern wars... that you need a lot less of.
It's costs balooned out out of control, but that occasionally happens when you build unknown technologies for the first time.
They want to buy around... 225 I think? That seems... pretty reasonable honestly considering it's over the course of like... 10 years or something like that?
Plus a move to F35's means the US can start selling F22's for some money.
As for feeding all the homeless... all the homeless already get fed. At least the ones who are sane enough to follow the procedures to get to where the food his. In general longterm homelessness is above all else a mental health disorder, as the long term homeless almost all uniformly have a mental illness and refuse treatment.
That's the real burden of taking care of the homeless.
