# America Spends Too Much



## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Bobm: You wanted me to study before posting. I did and here is what I have come up with. These are facts. No inacurracies here.

2005 Pentagon Budget is $400 Billion Dollars
2005 Russian Military Budget is $18 Billion Dollars
2005 Chinese Military Budget is $36 Billion Dollars
Axis of Evil is less than $1 Billion Dollars

FACT: More than 100 countries have military budgets of less than $1 billion what the Pentagon spends in one day.

I am not saying we need to cut off money to our military. I want to feel safe too, but do we really need to spend this much? This why I have been posting on here for the last couple of months. I don't give a crap if it was Clinton or Bush, our congress, whatever. We spend too much of our money on things that don't need to be spent.

$748 Million to Columbia? Why? On another post someone said we are funding the Russian space program. Are we? Why? How much other money is being spent that doesn't need to be.

Why spend $400 BILLION on our miltary? Cut that by $100 Billion and we still have a military budget over 8 TIMES that of the Chinese Govt.

Can you imagine what $100 billion would do to our already broke schools, Headstart programs, and our dried up college scholarships??? How about the funding cut in agriculture? Could we allocate $1 billion of that 100 to go towards food for the worlds population that has none??? Do we not have an over supply of wheat?

We have millions of children in poverty yet we spend this money on such wasteful ways.

Put some money back in OUR pockets. Is that not what all of us want. Some tax breaks. How about paying off some of our National Debt?

I have made some mistakes and said some things on this site that were not backed up by facts. Some were just out of emotion. BUT THERE IT IS. Right in front of you.

And I say it again. Let's get our noses out of everyone's business and start taking care of our own right here on our ground.

We want peace? Then lets set a different precedense.

Gohon: You said I was playing in the sandbox. Yep, I am "centered" over here, your just looking too far left.

Have a nice day.


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

My guess is that the numbers from russia and China are not based on capitalist economies so the are not comparable apples to apples, I am guessing though. Where did you get the numbers? I would like to read it.

You make some good points but many of the programs you say are underfunded are not failing due to funding but due to flaws in the programs.

If you want to change the way we spend money you will have to change the way taxes are collected, because almost half the peole in this country pay no taxes at all so they have no care how its spent Fairtax.org has the answer to that.

There are tons of spending programs that are a waste and ag is one of the biggest pork laden on of the bunch


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## Gun Owner (Sep 9, 2005)

A large reason for the difference in budgets is payroll. We actually pay our servicemen better than our counterparts. Being a capitolist society, if we dont keep our long term servicemen remotely happy with decent pay, they walk.

The chinese service men dont need the money incentive. If they walk, its likely into the path of a bullet.

Lets also take into account that the Russian budget doesnt even cover payroll. There are many stories coming out of Russia about servicemen who havent been paid in months.

Another large portion of our budget is research and development. All them fancy cool weapons we use to stay miles ahead of the competition costs money. The Russians used to do the same thing, albeit at a lower cost do to the socialist nature of their society. The Chinese just buy it all from the Russians.

I'd agree there is room for improvement, there always is. No matter how careful you watch your money, you always blow a little of it. But Comparing us to the Russians and the Chinese isnt exactly fair.


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## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

Bobm: I just ran a search engine on finding the military budgets with the exception of the U.S. which I got off a govt. website. I didn't just take the numbers from just one website. I used the larger numbers (one site said Russia had a budget of 7 billion and then the highest was $18 so I used the largest one documented).

Ok, so now we aren't comparing apples to apples. So our budget includes everything and theirs does not??? How so? Then I guess we should include Homeland Security, the FBI, and the CIA into our miltary budget? I left them out, but I believe they help with the war on terrorism and other military issues.

Let's just say for the record that China and Russia both spend $100 billion each instead of the 18 or 36 billion. If we spent only 300 billion, we would still be 3 times higher allowing us to spend 100 billion other places.

Ag does have some pork issues, but there are some programs that have been hashed (cooperative extension, nutrition, etc..).

All I am saying is we spend too much money on lots of things and some money shouldn't even be going out..period. It should be going back to us or towards our National Debt.


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## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

> Gunowner wrote:
> "But Comparing us to the Russians and the Chinese isnt exactly fair."


How so? Who would compare us to then? Canada? With their 1 helicopter and 1 submarine?


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## Gun Owner (Sep 9, 2005)

That is the problem. There is no one for us to be compared to. Your best bet would be to compare us to a large group of countries, like the totaled budgets of Great Brittain, France, Germany, Spain and so on. Dont forget that not ony does capitolism have a large part to do with the budget differences, Land mass does as well. We have a large country to protect, as well as several allies we protect. That means a larger military.


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## Gun Owner (Sep 9, 2005)

Just thought I should add, since I may have not been clear in my first post, that I 100% agree with you in the fact that we are spending to much money.

My reason for debate is simply that we must look at all aspects of government spending, not just the military. And if we want to look at the military, we need a better comparison then the socialist nations we seek to stay ahead of.


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## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

GO: Thanks for the clarification.

I don't mean to focus just on the military, but they do have an enormous budget.

I should have tried to do a bit more research on other things we are spending on. Still wondering if we really do finance the Russian space program or not.

I posted earlier this year about $748 million to Columbia. I am sure there are a few more countries we send foreign aid to (Would that be considered F.A.?) I guess I see F.A. as us dropping boxes of food over in Ethiopia or something along that line.


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## Gohon (Feb 14, 2005)

The over all hourly wage for a factory worker in the USA is $18.00 an hour ( 2004 year report). The over all hourly wage for a factory worker in China is about 30 cents or $55.00 a mouth.

The 2004 budget expenditures for the military was 466 billion. However a large portion of this figure was in supplemental spending for the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. China reported to have spent 24.6 billion but because of secrecy it is estimated that China actually spent between 45 and 85 billion dollars during 2004. Russia shows 50 billion but again according to note 6 in the link provided all the figures may not be there.

I think as Gun Owner pointed out there really is no other country we can be compared to. As an example Japan spent 44.7 billion dollars of their military despite the fact we have the entire seventh fleet anchored in their ports, not to mention the Army on several bases.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... ending.htm

Take a look at this link ........... two things stand out. (1) very few countries are not operating without being in the red. (2) while all other countries are reporting their revenues in the billions, the US reports our revenues in the trillions. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/fac ... /2056.html


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## DeltaBoy (Mar 4, 2004)

This is why Walmart is expanding... I heard at one time 90% of the product is produced outside of the United States - WOW!


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## Bobm (Aug 26, 2003)

http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0510-26.pdf

:eyeroll:


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

Gohon, that is the point I would have made if I could have got to my home computer soon enough. If you look at the average annual wage of a Chinese person and an American it is very likely that it cost them many times higher percentage of their income than we Americans pay. These nations also try hide how much they spend on their military. Also, the cost of any military weapon may only be 10% of what we pay for the same weapon. Their real total cost may, no, is likely to be much more than out military spending.

Live2hunt, I have seen some of your comments before and although you are looking at things differently you do support the second amendment if I remember correctly some other conservative ideals. I guess I wouldn't classify you as liberal or conservative. I have been watching this thread and it was getting a little contentious. I was happy to see that rather than being offended you did actually take the time to consider things and give thought , and asked some questions. Very admirable.

I pay more than average attention to politics, yet I have many questions. Things were clearer years ago when the media was more credible, and it was more common for a few politicians to have genuine integrity. Today society as a whole puts less importance on what was considered honorable not that many years ago. We all need to question things, and when we present things try to give factual evidence for our logic process. This thread has taken a surprisingly productive turn. More of a discussion than a debate.


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