Trump to Call for (Major) Military Spending Increase - Repeal Sequistration

a reply to: Indigo5

Trump has said this all along, it's not really news (other than the fact he said it again). It's one of the major critiques of his economic policy. He wants to cut taxes while also doubling the defense budget.

Interestingly enough, the only way you can double the defense budget is to expand programs and bring in a whole bunch of contractors which is essentially corporate welfare, and a serious issue in the US when something like 1 in 7 current jobs exists specifically because of defense spending.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
Then the problem is not the ammount of money, since you are outspending them 2 to 1. It's how you are using that money.

~Tenth

One of the big problems is military objectives. Russia and China atleast have most of their budget going towards maintaining their borders. They're creating defensive technologies meant to be used against advanced opponents (because no one else has the power projection capabilities). The US on the other hand has this misguided notion that we need a defensive army in addition to the ability to invade 2 countries at once (2 because 1 is only a threat as long as you never actually invade anyone). Most of our targets though aren't advanced and we have to make up for numbers with high quality expensive items. Basically, we're looking to trade down with high quality (an expensive proposition) while our rivals are looking to trade up with lower quality technology from within their borders (very cheap and effective). This is our problem.

If we spend $660 billion on actual defense every year we would be untouchable, of course we wouldn't have the global leverage we do either because we would have no power projection. What we spend $660 billion a year on is offense, but offense requires a 3:1 or 4:1 advantage just to break even. We don't have the manpower or the budget to actually pull that off and that's why the generals say our military is weak.

originally posted by: seeker1963

Shame some people do not understand how Defense Contractors rake in the big buck from our military spending and our actual troops suffer for lack of proper equipment to function.

I understand that, I saw the defense contractors billing the military $100 for a 24 pack of toilet paper when I was overseas.