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Without defending debt spending at all, this claim is misleading because it has the defense budget too low. It's just listing the ~$820 billion Defense Departme
by karaterobot 2y ago
Without defending debt spending at all, this claim is misleading because it has the defense budget too low. It's just listing the ~$820 billion Defense Department budget, and not counting things like Veterans Affairs, which by itself is another ~$350 billion. You never get the actual total for defense-related spending, because it's spread across different areas of the budget. This is a comment about how defense spending is always higher than people claim it is.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mensetmanusman 2y agoBut this is also misleading because we don’t agree on what counts as defense, so we call everything defense. The armies of theoretical physicist working on new optical devices to study fusion could fall under the defense department if their work has some slight application for nuclear weapons, even though the economy benefits much more having a skilled workforce With strong science backgrounds.
- smegsicle 2y agocorn subsidies is national defense spending
- karaterobot 2y agoSure, but that defense spending number only gets higher the more we add on to it. The point is that it's not going to be lower than the debt interest no matter what. I don't think it's misleading to say that we aren't being told the upper bound of defense spending.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y agoIts easy to parse this though. If the funding for these physicists comes from a defense source like DARPA or one of the many other places where defense funds research, then it counts in the defense budget.
- paulddraper 2y agoIs that defense spending? Or healthcare spending? And if it is defense spending, I assume you should at least discount the large portion of VA that would otherwise be Medicare if it didn't exist.
- standardUser 2y agoYes, paying for soldiers is defense spending. That's a fair point about Medicare, but veterans benefits are far more expense than general public welfare spending (per person), and that difference is substantial given the size of the US military.