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I love this "half of annual discretionary spending". It is designed to confuse the fact that military spending is only %15. [1] https://www.kff.org/medicare/i
by ransom1538 6y ago
I love this "half of annual discretionary spending". It is designed to confuse the fact that military spending is only %15. [1]
https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/the-facts-on-medicare-spending-and-financing/ https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/the-facts-on-medica...
- chmod775 6y agoI don't think spending more on military than the next 10 countries combined can be described as "only" in any way. The highest spender are the US, with $732.0 billion, followed by China with $261.0 billion, then India and Russia with $71.1 and $65.1 billion respectively.
- rayiner 6y agoMilitaries are reliant on domestic production and labor. (Paying Chinese solider costs the government a fraction as much as an American soldier.) So instead of an exchange rate conversion, you should be doing a purchasing-power conversion. For these three countries, that means multiplying by 2x to 4x. Also, the US is particularly inefficient at capital spending. It costs us a billion dollars to build a mile of subway, and costs countries like France a fraction of that. So that weighs further in favor of discounting our spending in that comparison.
- CydeWeys 6y agoThe majority of DoD's budget is not salaries. Only the salaries should be scaled in this way. E.g. many other countries are buying our F-35s at the same price we are. Other countries simply can't get equally effective jet fighters, aircraft carriers, etc., at a third to a quarter of the price.
- icegreentea2 6y agoYou're correct, personnel costs is not the majority of DoD costs. However, their "pay and benefits" take up 40% of it's budget (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#For_personnel_payment_and_benefits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...) Procurement (the most visible part of the budget we hear about) is 20% of the DoD budget.
- samstave 6y agoAlso, one needs to take into account Black Budgets - as they are totally opaque and we have no idea what amount of the budget they consume, assuming they are even accounted for in the 700 billion dollar number the budget claims to be.
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- rayiner 6y agoWhy would only salaries be scaled that way? It costs China a fraction as much as the U.S. to build a train line. Do you think it costs them the same amount in nominal dollars to build a landmine?
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- jupp0r 6y ago> So instead of an exchange rate conversion, you should be doing a purchasing-power conversion. Are soldiers with greater purchasing power more effective on the battlefield?
- samstave 6y agoThats a really interesting question. My brother was a Colonel in the airforce, Commander of the 10th Medical Wing. He is a really successful doctor who then led the VA for the state of alaska... He is now CEO for a hospital in Idaho. The point is that his life path was truly successful for him through the military and he has added great value to the nation through that experience. Had he been a minion in a more oppressive style regime, such as China - or North Korea, or even Russia, then I would expect he would have been less effective at being such a positive value to those nations as he is to the US. And this is due only in a small part as to his ability to have a happy, successful material life here in the US and also raise an amazing family.
- tsimionescu 6y agoI can only applaud your brother's accomplishments! That said, why do you believe that he succeeded because of the military and not in spite of it? Is his story in any way typical for veterans? From my understanding, not at all. Also, why do you assume that Russian or Chinese military service is less valued or constructive for their service members than US service? Are you basing this on something, or just the general image created by US media about the Chinese and Russian armed forces?
- samstave 6y agoThanks for your reply -- Ill be honest - I evaluated my statement based on your response, and the only thing I can come up with WRT what I am basing it on is actually a bias to my understanding of how corrupt those regimes are.... now, thats not to say that the US doesnt have a problem with corruption (its getting worse, here in the US, whereby politicians are enriching themselves at the expense of others -- see "politicians made millions from stock trade before the pandemic information was released" type stories)
- catalogia 6y agoNo matter which way you slice it, America has a very capable blue water navy while China's barely qualifies. They're on tier with India, Italy, and Russia; only capable of force-projection in their neighborhood. Besides the US, France and the UK are capable of global power projection; that's it. And both of those are in NATO too.
- nl 6y agoFrance isn't in NATO. Edit: ok they are. But they did attempt to withdraw and were only stopped by the 20 year rule. And they still don't have unified nuclear command. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_NATO https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_NATO
- detaro 6y agoFrance is a founding member of NATO.
- catalogia 6y agoFrance was a member of NATO from the very beginning. In the 60s France had some manner of dispute with the rest of NATO and disassociated themselves in some capacity, but technically remained a member. Since 2009, French/NATO relations have been largely normalized, I think with the exception of how the French government chooses to control France's nukes. > Edit: ok they are. But they did attempt to withdraw and were only stopped by the 20 year rule. And they still don't have unified nuclear command. Be that as it may, I don't think Americans need an expensive navy to protect themselves from the French.
- tenuousemphasis 6y agoThat would be news to NATO. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm
- fauigerzigerk 6y ago>So instead of an exchange rate conversion, you should be doing a purchasing-power conversion. For these three countries, that means multiplying by 3x or 4x. Where did you get those numbers from? According to the OECD the renminbi PPP rate is 4.198 whereas the the current exchange rate is 7. That's 1.67x not 3x. https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-p...
- Lineup 6y agoNow equalize labor cost... tada!
- fauigerzigerk 6y agoPPP does include labour. Whether or not it adequately reflects the share of labour costs for the Chinese military I don't know.
- endogui 6y agoThe US is filling the role of the Roman Empire, securing trade routes to allow efficient scales of tech expertise and production. If that military is scaled back or shown to be obsolete/ineffectual, then globalism itself will come into question. The dark ages were caused by the localizing of production, with local feifdoms losing access to specialized technical expertise. To some extent, this is what we see now with companies moving produuction back to North America.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago> The US is filling the role of the Roman Empire Yeah, and look how that ended. In fact, its entirely apt cautionary tale because due to taxes and an ever increasing cost of living in Rome proper citizen-soldiers (during the Republic) often went bankrupt and fell into destitute while fighting campaigns from Rome's conquest and returned to see the oligarchy take their fields/land and displaced them further and further out of Rome. This is the story of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, direct descendants of Scipio Africanus (the illustrious Soldier and Savior of the Roman Republic) and the Land/Ag Plebeian reforms they achieved that cost them both their lives after several stints in Politics. It got to a point that due to land consolidation that it was less expensive to buy the wheat from Egypt, have it transported by boat, and used (often slave labour) to bake the bread then it was to buy a loaf locally. My old History professor went on an amazing rant about this for an hour in one of my Roman History courses when we were discussing the true costs of Imperial Expansion and what is often swept under the rug as a footnote in History, she was old but still pissed because they didn't let her include it in her book. The World now is ever more interconnected than ever, and one could argue why that is a horrible trade-off both for national security purposes but also for self-reliance reasons as we saw with the PPE shortage and the faulty equipment that came from China. But I fail to see how the West at least would abandon the critical supply chains they have developed in order for Society to function unless we have something like an asteroid collision. Even now the EU as well as Australia, and New Zealand are siding with the US' stance on punishing the CCP's Security Law in Hong Kong that is going to undo the relationship that served as an access point into China via a neutral party. Are you seriously suggesting that if the US empire scaled back its efforts in those regions then we'd return to the dark ages? Because when I was in Europe Somali pirates were hi-jacking oil tankers and the US didn't intervene, it took the European companies and military to put an end to that entirely by themselves without the need of US involvement. I think the US is headed for the same fate as Rome as it refuses to learn the same lessons, but if given the choice between China or the US as the Global Superpower I think its the latter that must retain its position as the former is hellbent on a suicidal mission that destroys everything in its path and will commit horrible acts of barbarism and won't hesitate to take the whole World down with it in its folly (see recent cases: Xianjing, Wuhan, Hong Kong and Beijing). I just hope we can attain a position where the World doesn't need superpowers and can return to at least a mutually beneficial city-state model as COVID has proven we cannot really overcome such huge issues like pandemics (or likely wide scale famines or global catastrophes) at such a scale. I mean governing 300+ million People is hard to conceptualize, but with Nation-States like China and India where it goes into the billions is just unfathomable and failure is the only real outcome in that. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODI1VOOoey0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODI1VOOoey0
- BoiledCabbage 6y agoIf you're going to have a discussion about federal spending, it's important that you understand the difference between discretionary and non-discretionary spending and why both are relevant. As well as understand what spending expenses have revenue (ie taxes) tied to them and which ones don't. I'm not going to be proscriptive here and argue for either. But simply leave it at make sure you understand the key factors / attributes of income and spending beyond just a pie chart.