Entitlements, not Defense, that's killing the BudgetFrom Eric Dondero:
A clue that left-media spin on the defense spending versus entitlements, may be having an impact: Far more Americans believe wrongly, that the U.S spends more on defense spending and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, than on Social Security. (Right pie chart - S.S. in orange; Defense in dark blue).
Rasmussen finds:
Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters believe the U.S. spends more on national defense than it does on Social Security.As the pollster points out later in the report, spending on the two budget items are roughly equal; $729 billion annually for S.S. and $719 billion for defense. And only $120 billion of that number is spent on Afghanistan and Iraq.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters finds that 24% disagree and hold the opposite view while 29% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
There are similar misconceptions amongst the public regarding foreign aid. The total foreign aid budget amounts to about $40 billion, out of an overall budget of roughly $4 trillion. That equals a total of about 1% of the federal budget. CNN Fact Check reported earlier this year that a Kaiser Foundation survey found that 45 percent of Americans incorrectly thought "that foreign aid was one of the two largest areas of federal spending."
H/t Concord Coalition for pie chart.
34 Bloviations:
Really Eric? Are you saying the war in Iraq [which we should never have fought] cost us nothing? The war in Afghanistan, which is lost, cost us nothing?
Also, where is our peace dividend from the close of the Cold War?
The military's budget needs to be cut at least by half right away. The military's budget has been expanding without cuts since Bush Sr.
your most faithful and obedient servant
Alan Turin
Geez, "never should have fought." Guess you'd be perfectly happy if Saddam Hussein was still in power with his murderous genocidal-manice two sons Uday and Qusay read to take over for another 40 years after his death.
Tell me again, how being Anti-War in Iraq, isn't Pro-Saddam?
Funny how the left-libtards are so anxious to slash and burn when it comes to the Military, but talk Entitlements like Social Security, and no, no, no, they're nowhere's to be found.
Hell, Bush tried to privatize Social Securty. Gives him more libertarian credigility than the welfare-state/moocher loving left-libertarians.
"Funny how the left-libtards are so anxious to slash and burn when it comes to the Military, but talk Entitlements like Social Security, and no, no, no, they're nowhere's to be found."
Horseapples.
Balderdash.
Poppycock.
"Bush tried to privatize Social Securty."
No he didn't. His plan still required you to give your money to the government, it just allowed you to direct how some of it would be handled BY the government. That's not even fake "privatization," let alone the real thing.
I'm no fan of the Social Security scam, but at least a large portion of its revenues are going back to the people who paid them (unfortunately on a Ponzi basis). The "defense" budget is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 times the size it would need to be for actual "defense." The rest is fat, pork and corporate welfare.
Really Knappy. Then why was he so harshly slammed all over the Left media for wanting to "PRIVATIZE" Social Security and take away Granny's government check?
Funny how you seem to forget that in 2005. I remember it like it was yesterday: Bush portrayed as the evil Grinch.
"Are you saying the war in Iraq [which we should never have fought] cost us nothing? The war in Afghanistan, which is lost, cost us nothing?
Your stupidity is exceeded only by your dishonesty. You suck ass.
Hope this helps,
Chuck.
Eric,
Of course the evil "left media" never lie, do they?
Besides which, your "memory" tends to be about 50% selective and 50% fantasy.
"but at least a large portion of its revenues are going back to the people who paid them "
Whereas the defense budget is spent on all them French fighter jets we fly and those Somali tanks we buy.
Yeah.
Do you fuckers have any honor at all? I mean, shitfire,son! Don't you realize that as soon as you descend into this retarded sophistry of yours, you've already ceded the argument?
Knapp, say we scale down the military to the levels that you suggest. For argument's sake, say we cut the military by 3/4ths. Maybe only a couple hundred thousand in uniform. Less than 100 ship Navy. Eliminate the Marines altogether. Keep a few F-14s, and a tiny Air Force at one base in Colorado or North Dakota.
What will you say, if some Islam-nutso comes to the U.S. with a dirty bomb, and nukes Houston, Denver, St. Louis, or Philadelphia. Say hundreds of thousands dead.
At that point will you admit you were wrong?
Scale down?? What the fucking fuck!?!? We've already scaled down to a ridiculous degree. Our enemies understand this. Do you imagine North Korea or Iran would be pulling the shit they are otherwise?
These pacifist cunts aren't pacifists at all. They're morally indistinct from suicide bombers. They seek the annihilation of their own country.
Scum of the fucking earth.
Eric,
If the US ends its occupation of the middle east I would think that it would be pretty hard to scrape up the money and motivation to bomb Houston. Do you agree or disagree?
"If the US ends its occupation of the middle east"
A thing must begin before it can end.
Does the US "occupy" Europe, you mouth-breathing shit stain?
I've been arguing this for two decades. Some stupid twit of a libtard teacher I had in college tried to get me to buy in, showing me all sorts of material. I took a day and brought her the real data. Even back in '95 or 2000 it was so. At least she did realize her material was bunk and backed off.
Libtards, however, never change. And if they are being payed by the government to earn an education to further work for the government (social worker), they have no chance of brightening up. Gotta look at where they are in the IQ pile though, too. Start low, aim low. Bureaucracy!
Thane, (sigh!). Do you honestly believe that their hatred for us has ANYTHING! to do with our Troops being on Arab lands. My gosh man. You really are drinking the Lefty kool-aid.
THEY FUCKING HATE US FOR WHO WE ARE!!!!! Did you not fucking read that article I posted two days ago about the Rapes in the UK. The Muslim rapists calling British girls, "white bitches," and denigrating British culture.
You think they were raping those chics cause the US had troops in Saudi Arabia???
Thane, do you even fucking read this blog?
Did you not read the headliner story today, about Odinga and his Muslim cronies attacking Gays all over Kenya?
Tell me Thane, are these Kenyan Gays somehow secret agents for the CIA?
Or, do you think the Kenyan Muslims hate them for the simple fact that they're Gay?
Why was Theo van Gogh murdered on the streets of Amsterdam? Was it because those warmonger Dutch had Troops all over the Middle East, Pakistan, and South Asia? You know those Dutch. They're always so willing to send their Troops all over the Globe. Just a bunch of NeoCons those Dutch.
Eric,
I read this site often but I don't put garden variety Muslim rapists and garden variety Muslim murderers in the same class as those who bomb.
I am not disputing that there are some Muslims who dislike, disparage and despoil the culture of freedom.
My question was about bombers. It was not about rapists nor one at a time murderers.
I am not disputing the fact that many Muslim majority countries are inhospitable to homosexuals and non-Muslims in general.
Have you answered my question? I guess I must presume that you believe that those who bomb would have just as much motivation and funding if the US Army decamped from the middle east. I find that position hard to believe.
Eric,
"Knapp, say we scale down the military to the levels that you suggest. For argument's sake, say we cut the military by 3/4ths. Maybe only a couple hundred thousand in uniform. Less than 100 ship Navy. Eliminate the Marines altogether. Keep a few F-14s, and a tiny Air Force at one base in Colorado or North Dakota."
Actually my suggestion in the past has been to slightly expand the size of the Marine Corps, reduce the Army's ground component to a couple of divisions tasked with training militia, and roll the Air Force into Navy/Marine air.
"What will you say, if some Islam-nutso comes to the U.S. with a dirty bomb, and nukes Houston, Denver, St. Louis, or Philadelphia. Say hundreds of thousands dead."
I'll apologize for not being ambitious enough with the cutting. The current size of the US military not only doesn't prevent that, it actively encourages it.
Okay, this makes me happy. I feel like we're actually making progress here.
Now, say we cut the military to exactly the size you say. How do you propose to stop these islamo-nutsos from blowing up Americans?
And don't you think we run the danger of these islamo-nutsos laughing at our weakness? And why wouldn't backing down to them encourage them to take on a more active Jihad against America, as in "those panty-waste Americans have no stomach for War. we told you. We won. Now we will drive a stake into the heart of Western Civilization for eternity."
Please explain how drastically reducing the military and pulling out all our troops from Arab lands is not akin to total surrender, and the ultimate destruction of Western civilization?
BTW, it's not just islamo-nutsos. I live 5 hours from the Mexican border. How do you propose to protect Texas ranchers and their property from invading Mexican drug gangs? Or how about Central and South American communists crossing our southern border? Human traffickers as in slave traders? Pirates?
My gosh. The more I think about it, the Knapp foreign policy is a sheer and utter disaster. It's essentially a destroy the United States of America forever proposal.
Dude, man, sometimes I think you're not serious. Perhaps just playing devil's advocate. You really can't believe this destruction of America shit. C'mon!
Then we have the problem of ballistic missiles from rogue countries and terrorists.
Abolish the Air Force, how do you protect the United States from nuclear destruction?
Or maybe you don't. Perhaps that's the Knapp plan. To allow for the complete elimination of the American people.
"Now, say we cut the military to exactly the size you say. How do you propose to stop these islamo-nutsos from blowing up Americans?"
Cutting the US military down to size, so that it doesn't have the excess capacity to run around playing catch-me-fuck-me all over the world, will reduce the popular support which finances and provides recruits for the islamo-nutsos.
Since you've apparently had your head buried somewhere dark and wet for the past nine years, I guess I have to break the news to you: The military hasn't been the primary domestic defense against terrorism during the nine years since 9/11.
"Abolish the Air Force, how do you protect the United States from nuclear destruction?"
I was very specific about that -- roll the Air Force's functions into the Navy's and Marine Corps' functions. Although I suppose the Army could take on the ICBM function if it was howling for a piece of that action. But strategic bombing and tac air should definitely have a unified chain of command with ground and sea ops.
Libtard rolls off the tongue as does conservatard.
"Cutting the US military down to size, so that it doesn't have the excess capacity to run around playing catch-me-fuck-me all over the world"
Gee. What a neat line.
Fantasyland must be a wonderful place to live.
"Fantasyland must be a wonderful place to live."
Yes, it is. I spent 10 years living in it (US Marine Corps) and enjoyed it very much.
Paying for DoD's fantasyland, on the other hand, isn't nearly as nice as living in it. The price is exorbitant in terms of money, and unacceptable in terms of reduced security.
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha. Alas, Knappy reveals his true colors. He really does want the United States to be defeated by Radical Islam.
Like they're gonna just leave us alone if we pull our Troops out of their lands and drastically reduce the size of the military.
Yoh, dumbass: THAT WILL SERVE ONLY TO ENCOURAGE THEM EVEN MORE!!!
They thrive on our weakness. They live, breath, eat and shit destruction of the Infidels. Us!
They only thing stopping them is the fact that occassionaly, once in a while, us and the Brits get some balls and go over there and give them a little shock and awe.
The more we reduce the military, the more we pull out of the Middle East, the more attacks we'll have on the United States; simple as that.
Attention war party blowhards. You were wrong on Iraq & Afghanistan & you've yet to show a scintilla of evidence as to your correctness.
IF you had intellectual integrity [roflmao]you'd acknowledge it. You haven't yet, but I pray for your souls.
Iraq was obviously a war we should never have fought. Saddam Hussein was everything the war party claims he was. You neglect mentioning he was a client ruler of the USG: he was "our man in Baghdad" until he got USG permission to invade Kuwait and the USG reneged on its permission.
We have LOST in Iraq. W gave Iran an ally were once they had an enemy. Iran's influence has expanded. Or do you think that is an improvement?
Afghanistan: Henry Kissinger gave the green light to the Shah [our former Man in Teheran] to oust the King in 1973. This thru a legitimate authority out for that benighted country.
Afghanistan broke the lance for the Soviets & the USG has lost the same way. The Taliban, who never attacked us, are gaining the hearts & minds of Afghans. Meanwhile a real enemy, alkayda, thrives and the USG delivers to alkayda its objectives.
The USG if it is to follow libertarian principles, should withdraw from both lost wars, Europe, the Korean peninsula, Okinawa for starters & end foreign aid.
your most faithful and obedient servant
Alan Turin
PS
There is no Islamo-fascism.
ART
Harry Reid sais "We Lost in Iraq" too. He had to retract that statement.
Okay, this is the second time now I've had to ask Alan Turin this question. Let's see if he answers this time.
Alan, my friend, would you be happier with Saddam Hussein still in power as Premiere Dictator and President of the Republic of Iraq? With his two sons Uday and Qusay, ready to take over and rule Iraq for another 40+ years after his death?
Alan, would the world be a better place with Saddam Hussein still in power?
Alan, would the United States be more secure if Saddam Hussein was still in power?
As absolutely horrendous as the Iranians were/are, they haven't gassed 200,000 of their own citizens like Saddam Hussein. Hussein's record of genocide is well into the over 1 million mark, some say closer to 2 million.
Even if you take the lower figure, that far exceeds genocide in Iran.
Yeah, the Iranians suck big time. But given the choice, Saddam Hussein or Iran, I'd take Iran.
It's like Vietnam vs. the Cambodian Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s.
Do you side with the Vietnamese Communists to get rid of Pol Pot? As murderous, and horrendous as the Vietnamese were, they didn't even come close to the carnage Pol Pot inflicted on Southeast Asia.
By some estimates 2 million people were slaughtered by Pol Pot.
Yes, you temporarily align yourself with the invading Vietnamese to get rid of the Khmer Rouge.
"Yes, it is. I spent 10 years living in it (US Marine Corps) and enjoyed it very much."
As did your fellow Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald. Your foreign policy views are every bit as relevant as his. I won't deny you that. Wouldn't dream of it.
By the way:
In what manner is Alan Turin "faithful and obedient"?
To what is he faithful? What command does he obey?
Is he Eric's servant? Does he obey Eric?
Or is he simply a self important jackass?
Hope his helps,
Chuck
A man cannot serve two masters. So either he is a self-important jackass or he does obey eric, not both.
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