Ok, therefore....How much should the USA commit to defense spending on an annual basis? 

The OP had a conniption over the FY 19 total of $717 b.

In my opinion, yeah that is a bit excessive, I think $500-$600b is sufficient.  What say the rest of you? 

Give specific amounts, or a range of specific amounts like I just did.

0 b

I want world Peace T.T

All of that should be given for the poor in Africa to buy food.

Corrected

No man.

I heard that if instead of using money for space exploration or military funding, we could buy food for everyone that is starving. Or don't you know that if Billionaires gave their money food would just show up, and that when they buy a Yatch that money doesn't flow down they just burn it?

I don't think NYC is more inviting than say London or Paris. Besides you can spend billions of dollars on your defense and you still can't stop 3 planes crashing in your buildings. As long as civillians are on board. 

Actually Republicans are far worse than Democrats when it comes to spending, because they spend just as much as Democrats but then refuse to pay for it by actually reducing government income while they increase spending. See what's going on now for a case in point. Deficit has ballooned since Trump took office just like it ballooned during Bush and Reagan. When not in power they pretend to care about spending and when they are in power suddenly they go dead quiet on spending being bad, they even couple it with less income, which is why Republicans ALWAYS add to the debt far more than Democrats ever do.

Remember how loud and angry Republicans were about debt and deficits when Obama was president and we had crazy deficits for an actual reason - in order to pull America out of the recession. Now that Republicans are in charge they aren't saying a damn thing about the fact that they have completely reversed the momentum of the deficits which was falling dramatically for a few years (it had gotten back under 500 billion a few years ago), and under Trump/Republican control we are suddenly heading very quickly back to trillion dollar annual deficits despite the fact that the economy has been doing well for several years now and unemployment has been good for several years now. This is precisely the time when we should be minimizing the debt, not heading at full speed back to a trillion dollars a year. Imagine how bad things are gonna get during the next economic downturn now that republicans are giving us trillion dollar deficits when the economy is doing well!

Democrats aren't good on fiscal responsibility, but they are wayyyyy more responsible than the Republicans.

So we're back to the military budget we had when we were fighting two wars...except now we are fighting no wars. We really need to cut about 200 billion out of that budget. Unfortunately military is the hardest thing to cut back on because when you do dumb people will always complain that you are putting America in danger. And no one, not even plenty of Democrats, have the balls to stand up and do what's right and responsible for the country.

The military budget is gutting the nation. America will eventually implode as out of control military spending continues to eat up more and more tax money and the nation becomes bankrupted as trillion dollar deficits become the norm as they are about to under Trump and Republicans.

We need that huge Military complex when Trump declares martial law because of fears of Canada invading us. He will absolve congress and becomes Emperor of the North. All that money will go into making an undead army of white walkers and megagodzillars to conquer the world.

Except now those civilians will fight back with everything at their disposal - just like the passengers on United 93 did.  Prior to 9/11 the conventional wisdom held that passengers and crew should cooperate with the hijackers - and they would end up alive when the hijacking ended.  9/11 changed the game - no longer will any passengers and crew trust the hijackers to let them go alive.  From that point on - all hijacked passengers/crew must assume the worst case that the hijackers are on a suicide mission.  No more cooperating with those assholes.

Hey man, I'm starving.  How about sliding me some extra cash so I can eat?