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Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Tomahawk missiles and F15s aren't cheap, but I thought Medicare + Social Security chew up a majo

by cko 9y ago

Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Tomahawk missiles and F15s aren't cheap, but I thought Medicare + Social Security chew up a majority of our tax dollars.

humanrebar 9y ago
They do, along with other entitlements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget EDIT: Keep in mind that this is just the budget of the national government. Each state has its own budget that barely goes to military spending at all, instead focusing on entitlements, especially healthcare costs.
freeflight 9y ago
>Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Those $600+ billion have to come somewhere, don't they? And that doesn't even account for the unaccountable [0]. It doesn't look that bad in % of GDP because of the US's massive GDP, but in pure numbers, the US spends more money on it's military than the next 8 countries on the list combined. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1... [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-us-spends-more-on-defence-than-all-of-these-countries-combined/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-us-spends-more-on...
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Everyone recognizes that. They don't agree that the problem is the U.S. being war hungry as much as the other countries not being willing to chip in. Here's Obama on the subject: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-oba... """ “Free riders aggravate me,” he told me. Recently, Obama warned that Great Britain would no longer be able to claim a “special relationship” with the United States if it did not commit to spending at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense. “You have to pay your fair share,” Obama told David Cameron, who subsequently met the 2 percent threshold. Part of his mission as president, Obama explained, is to spur other countries to take action for themselves, rather than wait for the U.S. to lead. The defense of the liberal international order against jihadist terror, Russian adventurism, and Chinese bullying depends in part, he believes, on the willingness of other nations to share the burden with the U.S. """
  - freeflight 9y ago
    That's a narrative that works in the US and only in the US. What are countries supposed to "chip in" for? The deterrence of a future alien invasion like in Independence Day? Why should the world chip in for US Ambitions that result in massive destruction, like destabilizing the Middle East, while dealing with most of the brunt of the blowback of such US foreign policy decisions, in the form of refugee waves? Nobody asked you to be "the world police" no matter how much you keep telling yourself that, "the people there asked for US interventions", is a tale many US Americans keep telling themselves to keep the "We are the good guys" narrative intact, but it has little to nothing to do with reality. Because reality knows no "good guys" or "bad guys", in reality such terms are purely subjective. As much as I like the US as a country and it's people, there's a huge difference in perception in how US Americans see their country vs how the rest of the world perceives their country's actions.
    - taway_1212 9y ago
      Ugh, as a Pole in lived in Poland being a province of a Russian empire till 1989 and now am living in Poland which is realistically a province of US/EU empire. I much prefer the latter.
    - ThrowawayR2 9y ago
      Amazing. Have Europeans forgotten the Iron Curtain and and, more recently, the Crimea already? "Si vis pacem, para bellum"
      - convolvatron 9y ago
        how much would we all have to spend to reverse the re-annexation of crimea? clearly its not enough yet. or lets shoot for a resolution of the whole syria/iraq/israel/lebannon/etc thing. how much would that cost? does that get paid to the US directly or do we all fund our own militaries that work...under US control? or based on our own ideas? i'm just trying to figure out how this is supposed to work.
        9y ago
taway_1212 9y ago
Going down to (relative) German level of military spending would free up around $350b (per year). That could go a long way towards improving various social programs. The other issue is that health care in the US seems ridiculously expensive (with doctors making 20x minimum wage and various insurance companies profiteering from a broken system), so in the end this money would buy less health care than in Germany. The same is true with higher education - it's free in most of Europe, but the conditions aren't nearly as lavish as in the US (so again, the money wouldn't improve the situation as much as it could).

by cko 9y ago

Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Tomahawk missiles and F15s aren't cheap, but I thought Medicare + Social Security chew up a majority of our tax dollars.

humanrebar 9y ago

They do, along with other entitlements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget EDIT: Keep in mind that this is just the budget of the national government. Each state has its own budget that barely goes to military spending at all, instead focusing on entitlements, especially healthcare costs.

freeflight 9y ago

>Is military spending that large a percentage of US tax revenue? Those $600+ billion have to come somewhere, don't they? And that doesn't even account for the unaccountable [0]. It doesn't look that bad in % of GDP because of the US's massive GDP, but in pure numbers, the US spends more money on it's military than the next 8 countries on the list combined. [0] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1... [1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-us-spends-more-on-defence-than-all-of-these-countries-combined/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/the-us-spends-more-on...

humanrebar 9y ago
Everyone recognizes that. They don't agree that the problem is the U.S. being war hungry as much as the other countries not being willing to chip in. Here's Obama on the subject: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-oba... """ “Free riders aggravate me,” he told me. Recently, Obama warned that Great Britain would no longer be able to claim a “special relationship” with the United States if it did not commit to spending at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense. “You have to pay your fair share,” Obama told David Cameron, who subsequently met the 2 percent threshold. Part of his mission as president, Obama explained, is to spur other countries to take action for themselves, rather than wait for the U.S. to lead. The defense of the liberal international order against jihadist terror, Russian adventurism, and Chinese bullying depends in part, he believes, on the willingness of other nations to share the burden with the U.S. """
- freeflight 9y ago
  That's a narrative that works in the US and only in the US. What are countries supposed to "chip in" for? The deterrence of a future alien invasion like in Independence Day? Why should the world chip in for US Ambitions that result in massive destruction, like destabilizing the Middle East, while dealing with most of the brunt of the blowback of such US foreign policy decisions, in the form of refugee waves? Nobody asked you to be "the world police" no matter how much you keep telling yourself that, "the people there asked for US interventions", is a tale many US Americans keep telling themselves to keep the "We are the good guys" narrative intact, but it has little to nothing to do with reality. Because reality knows no "good guys" or "bad guys", in reality such terms are purely subjective. As much as I like the US as a country and it's people, there's a huge difference in perception in how US Americans see their country vs how the rest of the world perceives their country's actions.
  - taway_1212 9y ago
    Ugh, as a Pole in lived in Poland being a province of a Russian empire till 1989 and now am living in Poland which is realistically a province of US/EU empire. I much prefer the latter.
  - ThrowawayR2 9y ago
    Amazing. Have Europeans forgotten the Iron Curtain and and, more recently, the Crimea already? "Si vis pacem, para bellum"
    - convolvatron 9y ago
      how much would we all have to spend to reverse the re-annexation of crimea? clearly its not enough yet. or lets shoot for a resolution of the whole syria/iraq/israel/lebannon/etc thing. how much would that cost? does that get paid to the US directly or do we all fund our own militaries that work...under US control? or based on our own ideas? i'm just trying to figure out how this is supposed to work.
      - 9y ago

taway_1212 9y ago

Going down to (relative) German level of military spending would free up around $350b (per year). That could go a long way towards improving various social programs. The other issue is that health care in the US seems ridiculously expensive (with doctors making 20x minimum wage and various insurance companies profiteering from a broken system), so in the end this money would buy less health care than in Germany. The same is true with higher education - it's free in most of Europe, but the conditions aren't nearly as lavish as in the US (so again, the money wouldn't improve the situation as much as it could).