4 ms·

How much would be appropriate? What weapons systems should be canceled? Serious question. I would agree that $800B seems ridiculously high, and yet it's not

How much would be appropriate? What weapons systems should be canceled? Serious question. I would agree that $800B seems ridiculously high, and yet it's not easy to tease apart what should be cut.

starik36 6y ago
Keep in mind that the personnel and benefits take up 39% of the cost.
ludston 6y ago
Deciding that would be the job of the military wouldn't it? That's how cuts usually work. If they need some random on HN to tell them how to do that then they probably shouldn't have the job in the first place.
latch 6y ago
A lot of experts argue for and against aircraft carriers. The against (or at least not so many) argument seem more compelling to this layman.
ikeyany 6y ago
Whatever funding goes to military displays at sporting events can be cut for once. We never had flyovers and 7th-inning-stretch-salutes-to-heroes 20 years ago.
- pfranz 6y ago
  The argument that always comes up is that those flights are necessary because they're flight time required for training and public events are recruiting tools since we have a volunteer force. However, reducing the number of pilots/planes mean fewer training missions and reducing the military headcount reduces the need for recruitment.
  - Godel_unicode 6y ago
    Now you're moving the goal posts. Whether paying for flyovers out of the training budget makes sense is orthogonal to how big a military we should have.
    - pfranz 6y ago
      If flyovers come out of training budgets it's not a cut. The whole premise was reducing unnecessary programs. That has a clear knock-on effect of reducing the need for headcount and recruiting. I'm not a fan of constant military displays at sporting events, but the argument is usually shut down very quickly as required flight-time and as recruitment. I was trying to turn that into a more productive direction.
iancmceachern 6y ago
There is hundreds of millions in over the top research. Some of which is good stuff that moves us forward, but do we really need a Boeing X37 separate from NASA? Are we really getting our research money's worth when no one is allowed to know about, talk about, or otherwise leverage technologies developed? One of my favorite parts about Apollo and Kennedys involvement specifically is the very deliberate choice to make it a civil program. The question wasn't if we needed to put effort into demonstrating superiority in space or not. The question was to do it as a military or civil program. Point is, a country can accomplish a lot of the same things in different ways just by varying to which government agency we give resources. I would rather go to space on a peaceful, multi country mission, not on a military weapon. I also would rather give our public resources to first responders, medical workers, emts, fire fighters and other civil servants than to our military. We reap what we sow. Edited - typo
- mhh__ 6y ago
  The X37 probably isn't a particularly good example. It almost definitely has nefarious abilities, but it's main purpose is probably materials science they can't test on the ISS (military gear)
asdff 6y ago
I'd take a hard look at the contractor system for one. The military industrial complex is set up to extract massive profit out of the public purse. There is no reason why the defense departments at boeing et al. shouldn't be nationalized imo.

How much would be appropriate? What weapons systems should be canceled? Serious question. I would agree that $800B seems ridiculously high, and yet it's not easy to tease apart what should be cut.

starik36 6y ago

Keep in mind that the personnel and benefits take up 39% of the cost.

ludston 6y ago

Deciding that would be the job of the military wouldn't it? That's how cuts usually work. If they need some random on HN to tell them how to do that then they probably shouldn't have the job in the first place.

latch 6y ago

A lot of experts argue for and against aircraft carriers. The against (or at least not so many) argument seem more compelling to this layman.

ikeyany 6y ago

Whatever funding goes to military displays at sporting events can be cut for once. We never had flyovers and 7th-inning-stretch-salutes-to-heroes 20 years ago.

pfranz 6y ago
The argument that always comes up is that those flights are necessary because they're flight time required for training and public events are recruiting tools since we have a volunteer force. However, reducing the number of pilots/planes mean fewer training missions and reducing the military headcount reduces the need for recruitment.
- Godel_unicode 6y ago
  Now you're moving the goal posts. Whether paying for flyovers out of the training budget makes sense is orthogonal to how big a military we should have.
  - pfranz 6y ago
    If flyovers come out of training budgets it's not a cut. The whole premise was reducing unnecessary programs. That has a clear knock-on effect of reducing the need for headcount and recruiting. I'm not a fan of constant military displays at sporting events, but the argument is usually shut down very quickly as required flight-time and as recruitment. I was trying to turn that into a more productive direction.

iancmceachern 6y ago

There is hundreds of millions in over the top research. Some of which is good stuff that moves us forward, but do we really need a Boeing X37 separate from NASA? Are we really getting our research money's worth when no one is allowed to know about, talk about, or otherwise leverage technologies developed? One of my favorite parts about Apollo and Kennedys involvement specifically is the very deliberate choice to make it a civil program. The question wasn't if we needed to put effort into demonstrating superiority in space or not. The question was to do it as a military or civil program. Point is, a country can accomplish a lot of the same things in different ways just by varying to which government agency we give resources. I would rather go to space on a peaceful, multi country mission, not on a military weapon. I also would rather give our public resources to first responders, medical workers, emts, fire fighters and other civil servants than to our military. We reap what we sow. Edited - typo

mhh__ 6y ago
The X37 probably isn't a particularly good example. It almost definitely has nefarious abilities, but it's main purpose is probably materials science they can't test on the ISS (military gear)

asdff 6y ago

I'd take a hard look at the contractor system for one. The military industrial complex is set up to extract massive profit out of the public purse. There is no reason why the defense departments at boeing et al. shouldn't be nationalized imo.