Another $300M Down the Drain at DoD

Yes, it's a waste of 300 million, but considering the government spends 6.85 million per minute, it's a drop in the bucket. 300 million only pays the bills for 44 minutes.

-Bill

But, "look after the millions, and the billions look after themselves".

The US spends as much on defence as the next ten countries down the pecking order put together. Spending as much as your two closest rivals put together used to be seen to be enough, and there's a strong suspicion that a lot of US defence spending is actually "corporate welfare" engineered by large kick-backs from defence contractors to "defence-friendly" legislators.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

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Hey, it's not like the tea baggers are trying to starve widows and orphans to pay for defense and tax breaks for corporations and the rich. Oh wait, that is exactly what they want.

Anyway, the real money to be saved is in Nancy Pelosi's travel budget.

Not just tea baggers. The wealthy.

In any upcoming US debt ceiling problem should it happen, as long as bond payments are made, markets (wealth) don?t care if the cash flow shortage comes out of the checks to school lunches or veterans. Harsh but true.

Jon

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Exactly- and Defense spending was the original post-WW II stimulus package for backwater USA. It's an easy way for Congessmen to get federal money into their decrepit little districts where the biggest industry outside the government is burying out-of-state trash in local landfills.

The ships were caught in the switch from the single- to double-hull oiler requirements of the IMO after the original shipbuilder defaulted on the construction contract.

Since auxiliary vessels like these aren't in commission, and so don't get the "warship waver," but were too new to be grandfathered-in, they would have had to have been retrofitted as double-hull or, as finally happened, scrapped.

There were undoubtedly other commercial oilers that were caught in the same bind. I remember lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth when the IMO started really pushing the requirement.

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

n...

n

I went to a Moveon.org meeting recently, where they had some of the same opinions. Mostly factually wrong. They fervently, stridently believed that "rich" people pay no tax whatsoever. I'd be mad too if I thought that. Good people, just wrong.

What we need are jobs. Taxing someone's boss doesn't cause the boss to hire anyone, it causes him to lay people off.

That said, the taxes you're worried about are miniscule compared to Obama's overspending. The "rich" tax is only $70B a year (per Obama, others say half). Total corporate income tax revenue, (which is really a regressive tax on the poor), is $200B. Obama plans to double it in the next two years, driving away more companies and jobs, and causing the nation to pay more in unemployment, a lose-lose.

So, together, you've pointed out $270B. Obama's deficit is $1,650B. The one is not the cause of the other.

The cause is, in main, Obama's 24% spend-u-less hikes, which he's made part of the baseline budget. He's raised spending nearly $1T a YEAR, for nothing, yet can't cut a nickel without throwing Grandma to the wolves.

Last, it's Obama who's slyly insinuating that he won't pay widows and orphans, and that we'll have to default. The first is his choice, the

2nd is a lie.

Not a bad place to start...

-- Cheers, James Arthur

I would like to know which constituent did the contract go to.

hamilton

"Suspicion" isn't really the right term for something that's blatantly obvious.

sen...

ion

g

I wonder what makes James Arthur think that? Corporate taxes basically subtract from dividends paid to shar-holders, and share-holders aren't usually poor, since they have money free to invest in shares.

If you happen to believe in James Arthur's flat-earth economics.

If you'd be paying attention, you'd be aware that Obama's deficit is pumping-priming spending designed to prevent the 2008 sub-prime mortagage crisis - engineered by your "blameless bankers" - from escalating into a re-run of the Great Depression. You don't happen to believe in this approach, but this is part of your "flat-earth" eccentricity - you don't seem to believe in any post-Adam Smith economics. Paul Krugman - who is far enough ahead of the game to have got a Nobel Prize for economics - happens to differ.

James Arthur's "nothing" is roughly the difference between the Great Depression 25% unemployment and the current US figure of 9.2% - up from 8.8% in April this year, but down from 10.1% in November 2009.

Krugman now think that there should have been more pump-priming, or at least that more of teh pump-priming money should have been directed at the poor, who can be relied upon to spend it immediately, rather than leaving it in the bank in the hope of using it to buy out bankrupt neighbours when they finally go to the wall.

If the Republican won't raise the debt limit, the administration won't be able to pay widows and orphans, or anybody else. That's what default means. Obama doesn't have to slyly insinuate it - it's the whole story.

Sarah Palin seems to be getting about more - if Obama could sequester her campaign expenditure he could probably balance the budget.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

e

No, it's not close to true. You simply don't know the numbers Bill. You'll also note that Obama's careful never to specifically say he can't or won't, he just implies it. He's lawyering.

The chance of the US defaulting is zero. They'll still have $2.2T in incoming revenue. Avoiding default only requires a small fraction of that, say 2.5% x $10T in debt held by the public =3D $250B(*), with plenty left over for widows and orphans. There would be other hard choices to make, but that one's easy.

(*) The WSJ puts debt service at 6%, IIRC, which would be $228B of total outlays.

The President is deliberately scaring people with something that's not true.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Thats a very short sighted way of reasoning. The government provides the infrastructure that companies need to do business. Think about roads, airports, laws, safety, etc, etc. Since there is no such thing as a free lunch someone has to pay for all this. That also includes companies. Perhaps some companies will be driven away but they soon find out the grass ain't greener on the other side of the fence. Read about difficulties companies have when doing business in South America or Africa.

The main problem is that the US government has been spending too much and the US citizens and companies are going to pay for that. Like it or not.

Just look at countries like Ireland and Greece. Ireland has very low tax rates. This attracts a lot of companies but in fact the Irish government has been selling its services below the cost price. Greece has a similar problem with tax evasion and corruption causing the government to miss out on revenues.

Countries are just like companies. Sometimes they sell their services below cost price to attract certain types of industries and hope to create a higher living standard for its citizens. They can borrow the money to do that. What politicians seem to forget is that at some point this money must be paid back one way or another by the citizens AND that there has to be some security that a country is actually capable of paying back their debts. In case of the US I really wonder why it still has a triple A rating. But then again, Greece used to have an A rating in 2009 and Ireland even had a triple A rating at that time.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
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I was reciting facts, not arguing. The point was that those excuses are wrong, the deficit is not because of not having those taxes, it's because of all the other spending.

In fact we can't tax enough to pay for this much spending, it's not possible. We'd have to raise all taxes by a factor of 1.76. The country would revolt.

And, it still wouldn't be enough. Government is growing 12% a year, while the economy is growing at 2%. If we raised taxes 76% this year to balance the budget, we'd have a 10% deficit again next year, 20% the year after that (all things being equal).

Yes, but those are less than 10% of what our government does. We could have all that for 10% of what we pay now.

Taxing companies just makes them raise the price of their products, which is a regressive tax on the poor.

American companies take refuge in other countries because we've got the highest corporate tax rates. The result is that American companies like GE do business, keep their money overseas, and pay no US tax at all.

We agree on all of the above.

We're AAA-rated for the same reason sub-prime mortgage derivatives were AAA-rated...no good reason at all.

-- Cheers, James Arthur

Ah... transportation and infrastructure is only 3% of the budget.

The real money is in entitlements: "Of the budget",

20% is Social Security 21% is Medicare, medicaid and chips 14% is the Safety net Program 7% are benefits for federal retirees and Vets That totals 62% of the budget, might be a good place to look for cuts.

I'm sorry, I may have misled you with those numbers, because they are percentages "Of the Budget". How about if we look at these programs cost, by percentages of "Total Tax Revenues".

32% is Social Security 33% is Medicare, medicaid and chips 22% is the Safety net Program 11% are benefits for federal retirees and Vets Can you believe it! 98% of all taxes collected go to entitlement programs.

Well I'm not so sure, if 98% of "Total Tax Revenues" are transfer payments, seems like someone is having a free lunch. But your right it's not free, the 47% of wage earners that pay Federal Taxes, are buying the lunch.

Yes, and it looks like entitlement is a great place to start cutting.

You mean the US citizens are going to pay, companies get their money from the citizens and then pay their taxes with it. Mikek

Don't forget the war addicts, who somehow think killing innocent civilians half-way across the world is "defense."

Ron Paul wants to stop the occupation, but he also wants to limit the socialism.

Cheers! Rich

That's the same kind of reasoning employed by the thousands of useless and petty bureaucracies within the government to justify their existence.

Hey, it's not like the tea baggers are trying to starve widows and orphans to pay for defense and tax breaks for corporations and the rich. Oh wait, that is exactly what they want.

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Keep telling yourself that. Maybe with your fairy logic one day it will come true. In any case your hypothesis that the government is suppose take care of people and support "starving widows and orphans" shows a lack of historical fact and your ad-hominem attacks against the "tea baggers" simply prove your lack of intelligence.

Just curious... how many orphans do you have legal custody of and how many "starving widows" are you supporting? Yeah... didn't think so... You not only lack an understanding of history and are ignorant your hypocritical. But I suppose this is this is the criteria to be a socialist?

I suppose your feeling real bad while all those widows starve and orphans suffer while you live in 300k house, drive a 50k car, and spend 3k a month on useless gadgets and luxuries. Maybe instead of pointing the fingers at other people it's time to do your part? Yeah... again, I didn't think so...

Yes, there was talk of refitting them as ammunition carriers but they really weren't suitable for that, either. After the original shipbuilder went under there really wasn't much to do with the ships but scrap them.

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Sure the US spends more on defence, but we have to defend the rest of the world and host the United Nations at 25% of their budget. You should be happy with all the welfare you get.

-Bill