From today's news...

BAGHDAD--Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ruled out the presence of any U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of 2011, saying his new government and the country's security forces were capable of confronting any remaining threats to Iraq's security, sovereignty and unity. Mr. Maliki spoke with The Wall Street Journal in a two-hour interview.

So, add in the savings from pulling out of Afghanistan as quickly as we can and that's a saving in government spending of over $1 trillion per year.

Not a bad start on trimming government spending in a big way.

Sticking with military spending, how about slashing what we spend each year on our fleet of nuclear submarines? Even the admiral who is a member of the joint chiefs, when asked the value of the submarine service, answered that it has no real current value but it would be very valuable if the cold war was somehow renewed in 20 years or so. Whaaat?

Hey, I go for that 100%.

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

From today's news...

BAGHDAD--Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ruled out the presence of any U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of 2011, saying his new government and the country's security forces were capable of confronting any remaining threats to Iraq's security, sovereignty and unity. Mr. Maliki spoke with The Wall Street Journal in a two-hour interview.

So, add in the savings from pulling out of Afghanistan as quickly as we can and that's a saving in government spending of over $1 trillion per year.

Not a bad start on trimming government spending in a big way.

Sticking with military spending, how about slashing what we spend each year on our fleet of nuclear submarines? Even the admiral who is a member of the joint chiefs, when asked the value of the submarine service, answered that it
has no real current value but it would be very valuable if the cold war was somehow renewed in 20 years or so. Whaaat?

Pulling out would be an economic disaster.....
For the contractors.
This tabulator in only about money not other costs too numerous and emotional to mention.
www.costofwar.com

Note these two seniors personally buy, package, and mail dozens and dozens of packages,(nearly one ton) of requested and
necessary supplies to our troops over there every year.
The post office has special fixed rate boxes for our military.
We use www.anysoldier.com
We get nice handwritten letters and these people really appreciate the packages and can't 'get many of these goods otherwise.
L and L

Welcome back VK!

Common sense returns to the political forum. Cool.

It looks like my stepson is about to be hired by Blackwater. He could end up back in Afghanistan making significantly more than when he was in the Army just months ago. His mother (my wife), while wanting him to succeed, would be just as happy if he DIDN'T go..

Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

From today's news...

BAGHDAD--Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ruled out the presence of any U.S. troops in Iraq after the end of 2011, saying his new government and the country's security forces were capable of confronting any remaining threats to Iraq's security, sovereignty and unity. Mr. Maliki spoke with The Wall Street Journal in a two-hour interview.

So, add in the savings from pulling out of Afghanistan as quickly as we can and that's a saving in government spending of over $1 trillion per year.

Not a bad start on trimming government spending in a big way.

Sticking with military spending, how about slashing what we spend each year on our fleet of nuclear submarines? Even the admiral who is a member of the joint chiefs, when asked the value of the submarine service, answered that it has no real current value but it would be very valuable if the cold war was somehow renewed in 20 years or so. Whaaat?

I'm not being argumentative or contrary, I'd just like you to break it down for my education, where does the $1 trillion per year savings in government spending come from?

I do think defense spending needs to be looked at but unless we find a way to replace the good paying middle class jobs that these industries provide what are we gaining? I live in Connecticut the home of General Dynamics and Pratt and Whitney 2 huge defense industries. Cutting subs and hellicopters sounds like a good idea but where are these people going to find jobs of equal value? The huge military industrial complex touches almost all of our lives either directly or indirectly and our politicians do not want their districts losing jobs.

Originally Posted by bkcunningham1

I'm not being argumentative or contrary, I'd just like you to break it down for my education, where does the $1 trillion per year savings in government spending come from?

BK, no one needs to be argumentative nor contrary to not get it.
There are many among the peeps for whom denial, misinformation, and narrowness can also be contributing factors.

Here's a chart that comes from budgetary reports.

http://static.globalissues.org/i/mil...ution-2009.png
One of our close friends from the other side of the path sent us this link that provides a more thorough explanation and a webinar.
www.nationalproirities.org

L and L

Originally Posted by Larryandlinda

BK, no one needs to be argumentative nor contrary to not get it.
There are many among the peeps for whom denial, misinformation, and narrowness can also be contributing factors.

Here's a chart that comes from budgetary reports.

http://static.globalissues.org/i/mil...ution-2009.png
One of our close friends from the other side of the path sent us this link that provides a more thorough explanation and a webinar.
www.nationalproirities.org

L and L

I couldn't get the second link to open, so I went to the website. What did you want me to look at on the site? The first link is a pie chart that shows global distribution of military expenditures for 2009. That doesn't answer my question to VK.

Originally Posted by bkcunningham1

...where does the $1 trillion per year savings in government spending come from?

Good question BK. In researching the answer, I found that I was wrong in my original estimates of annual savings. I made the mistake of calculating things like the Congress so often does--using a ten-year period rather than just one year.

We have spent a trillion dollars on fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, $1.121 trillion to be exact. But that was over a nine-year period, from 9/11/2001 thru fiscal 2010. That's an average of about $125 billion per year. That's almost one-quarter of the entire current defense budget of the U.S.

The pace of war spending is increasing. Recently Congress approved the (supplementary) fiscal 2010 defense spending bill that included $128 billion to be spent on the two conflicts through Sept. 30. The Defense Department has said that it will request an additional $33 billion to pay for the surge in Afghanistan troop strength earlier this year. So it looks like war spending this year will total $158 billion. Total defense spending will be about $558 billion for 2010.

If we use Congress's "ten year estimate" approach, continued war spending at the current rate would total $1.58 trillion in the next ten years, an increase of 26% over war costs so far.

Returning to how much could potentially be saved in defense spending, I'll refer everyone to a recent report published by the conservative Washington think tank, The Cato Institute. In their report, a recommendation to the current 108th Congress which was not acted upon, Cato recommends a reduction in defense spending from current levels to about $200 billion per year. That would be a 50% cut in "basic" defense spending. Added to that amount would be any savings resulting from a reduction in troop strength in Iraq and Afghanistan in coming years. Make whatever assumptions you'd like on that question--Iraq says they want us totally out of there in 2011, and many military experts have opined that our efforts in Afghanistan are totally ineffective and should be stopped as soon as possible. Everyone should arrive at their own conclusions on the question of how much longer we keep fighting wars in the Middle East.

The portion of the Cato report regarding defense spending, with all their detailed recommendations, can be found at...

http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb108/hb108-48.pdf

By the way, in their report Cato recommends cutting the number of attack submarines from 55 to 25, more than a 50% reduction.

So what is the bottom line on what potential annual savings in defense spending might be? Reading a lot of what has been published suggests that it could be in the range of $250 to $350 billion per year.

Another bit of perspective might be of interest. As Draconian as the Cato-recommended cuts to the defense budget would be, if achieved they would reduce the total federal budget by about 7.6% per year. Such huge cuts would only reduce the total national debt by about 2% per year! There would need to be substantial more cost-cutting and probably increased revenues in order to first balance the annual budgets and then begin to reduce the national debt.

Substantial additional cuts in federal spending as well as increases in revenues (taxes) will obviously be necessary for the U.S. to move towards a budget that actually begins to whittle away at the skyrocketing national debt. If we think that cutting the budget of the Defense Department in half is Draconian, consider how little it would actually accomplish in balancing the budget and reducing our national debt. Consider how much more every American will have to sacrifice in order to achieve meaningful results. As I've said here before, it's simple arithmetic.

Originally Posted by waynet

I do think defense spending needs to be looked at but unless we find a way to replace the good paying middle class jobs that these industries provide what are we gaining? I live in Connecticut the home of General Dynamics and Pratt and Whitney 2 huge defense industries. Cutting subs and hellicopters sounds like a good idea but where are these people going to find jobs of equal value?

You don't have a right to a job for life.

I've been in my industry now for over 30 years and I'm not making the most money of my career. There were times when I lost my job and had to re-educate myself to reboot my career.

I'm not even making what I was making in 2007 when, for a brief while, as a contractor, I *just* did crack into 6 figures (but a divorce and daughter's college tuition took a LOT of that).

I'm making a decent living now but it's incumbent upon myself to make sure I keep my skills sharp. I've made the mistake of getting complacent and I hope I never make that mistake again.