Quote:
Originally Posted by gearhead55
Don't get me wrong, I am not against a large military at all. I completely understand the need for a large military, but there is no way that you can say that the amount we spend on it makes any sense. We spend more than the next sixteen countries COMBINED. It makes no sense to spend 1.5 TRILLION dollars over the life of the jet on a plane that performs WORSE than what already exists. There is examples like that all throughout the military because of the way the system is set up. You say yourself that "throw money at is" is never a solution, yet thats exactly what we do with military spending all day long.
http://www.rickety.us/2011/06/2010-d...ng-by-country/
I agree that the higher education system is a mess. Your example of the OSU president makes me sick.
And TMW, I don't think college is a guaranteed right either, but I don't think it should bankrupt a kid with student loan debt right out of the starting gate. |
Don't get lost in the JSF debacle.
It's a garbage program, everyone knows it. It's like having a project car - "you have a crap ton of money it it, you now regret it... But just another $500 will fix everything and make it all worth it.... I hope"
You also can't compare our military spending to others.
European countries rely on the US and are unable to project power. France and NATO actually ran out of missiles bombing Libya.
Countries like China, North Korea and Russian tend to have very low dollar value for human life. They army about to spend billions on MRAPs or other equipment to save a few lives.
You see this all the time in tactics and equipment other people use. No shits given to survivability or crew comfort. This is why we steam roll these assholes.
The US also has no stomach for body bags. So if I said "we can cut defense spending by 75%, but we'd have 35k killed in action during Iraq", would you support that?
$806 billion / 75% = $200 billion
Thats $20million a life.
Is it worth it?