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As a US citizen concerned with our bloated military budget but who also wants the US to remain the strongest military nation on Earth, I'd like to cut $100 bill

As a US citizen concerned with our bloated military budget but who also wants the US to remain the strongest military nation on Earth, I'd like to cut $100 billion from the $600 billion plus yearly US military budget, and allocate that money to infrastructure and social programs. We would still have by far the largest military budget in the world after this. Whoever knows about the US military budget, how feasible would this be? What is the bulk of the military budget dedicated to?

killjoywashere 9y ago
The biggest fractions are personnel, operations, and health care (last I checked, the Defense Health Agency spends more than the Marine Corps ... and provides health care for 8.4 million Americans. The ones who are that strongest military). But the DoD budget actually pales in comparison to Medicare and Social Security. The US Government is a well-armed insurance company, not a weapons dealer selling health insurance.
dschuler 9y ago
You could cut a number of non-essential items, even if they're not the largest - the US Army is the largest employer of musicians in the country [0], and the entire military spent at least $437M in one year on musicians in 2015 [1]. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2010/09/29/130212353/military-marching-bands https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2010/09/29/130212353/... [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/pentagons-bands-battle-223435 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/pentagons-bands-battl...
- 18pfsmt 9y ago
  That still leaves $99,563M. I'm not familiar enough with the details of the defense budget, but when looking at budgets, in general, the focus should be on line items that move the needle significantly.
  - dschuler 9y ago
    I guess the point I was trying to make is that there is plenty of room for budget trimming - you could go straight to the budget for fighter jets or soldiers or whatever the big ticket items are, but you're going to get a lot more resistance.
- Rebelgecko 9y ago
  How much of that could actually be cut? Even if you cut all the public relations type performances there's still some things you can't cut (even if you don't send buglers to funerals any more, you still need someone to show up and hit play on a boombox). Members of the military bands also do regular military stuff- I talked to a member of one of the Marine Corps bands that split his time in Iraq about 50/50 between holding his trumpet and his rifle (escorting supply convoys).

killjoywashere 9y ago

The biggest fractions are personnel, operations, and health care (last I checked, the Defense Health Agency spends more than the Marine Corps ... and provides health care for 8.4 million Americans. The ones who are that strongest military). But the DoD budget actually pales in comparison to Medicare and Social Security. The US Government is a well-armed insurance company, not a weapons dealer selling health insurance.

dschuler 9y ago

You could cut a number of non-essential items, even if they're not the largest - the US Army is the largest employer of musicians in the country [0], and the entire military spent at least $437M in one year on musicians in 2015 [1]. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2010/09/29/130212353/military-marching-bands https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2010/09/29/130212353/... [1] https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/pentagons-bands-battle-223435 https://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/pentagons-bands-battl...

18pfsmt 9y ago
That still leaves $99,563M. I'm not familiar enough with the details of the defense budget, but when looking at budgets, in general, the focus should be on line items that move the needle significantly.
- dschuler 9y ago
  I guess the point I was trying to make is that there is plenty of room for budget trimming - you could go straight to the budget for fighter jets or soldiers or whatever the big ticket items are, but you're going to get a lot more resistance.
Rebelgecko 9y ago
How much of that could actually be cut? Even if you cut all the public relations type performances there's still some things you can't cut (even if you don't send buglers to funerals any more, you still need someone to show up and hit play on a boombox). Members of the military bands also do regular military stuff- I talked to a member of one of the Marine Corps bands that split his time in Iraq about 50/50 between holding his trumpet and his rifle (escorting supply convoys).