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gherkinnn

Military spending is the Republicans’ wellfare. Or something.

While it might sound a tad simplistic, I can’t but see some truth in it.

This is also a classic: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-agai... (2014)

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“We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Benefits for the well off are ‘subsidies’ and ‘tax breaks‘, such as the fact corporate health insurance is not taxed, while benefits for the less well off are ‘handouts’.

I got into a debate with a republican over defense funding. I stated how the great bay-area recession of the early nighties was caused by scaling back of cold-war funding. Bases were closed and Lockheed Martin and others laid off alot of workers. They agreed it was terrible for the economy.

So I pointed out how they admit that Government funded make-work projects can have a positive effect on economies. So why not just switch from military spending to other tech spending? Why is it the military is the only government run make-work programs that R's support?

Yea or just ya know hire civil engineers to do basic maintenance on us infrastructure. Plenty of work to go around, there's no need to make up stuff to do.

Maybe the most insightful comment I've read this month.

Because this way you can also reap the gains if you invest in these firms? If you keep the make-work in like 3 companies, then I, a human, can get the rewards of owning the stock by doing manual work.

why not just switch from military spending to other tech spending?

What sort of tech spending? I mean military spending paid for development of the internet, jet engines, satellite communications, radar, a million other real actual things that people use everyday. Modern day Silly Valley piggybacks on all this stuff and uses it to show us ads...

>Modern day Silly Valley piggybacks on all this stuff and uses it to show us ads...

Less truth please :|

That classic example is poor. The idea is that congress is forcing the military to buy things that the military doesn't want. We need to question that.

The military follows orders. The president is commander in chief. If the president doesn't want to buy something, then the military doesn't want to buy something.

Given that the date was 2014, saying "the military doesn't want" was exactly equivalent to saying "Obama doesn't want".

Fully retired members of the military, not seeking to gain something like a DoD or cabinet-level position, might be able to speak more freely to congress.

The military isn't a borg collective, it is full of people trying to get their way, climb the ladder, make money, etc. Those motivations produce behavior counter to what the command structure 'wants'.

If congress appropriates the money the president is required to spend it on the things that congress wants[1].

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impoundment_of_appropriated_fu...

I mean we need to question "military doesn't want", not that we need to question "forcing the military to buy".

We may have a situation where the military really wants the equipment, but isn't permitted to admit it. They follow orders. The orders, coming down from the president, are that the military is to claim that they don't want the equipment.

Example: the military really wanted the F-22, then we got a new president, and suddenly the military isn't interested in the F-22

The military is not free to speak.

Well, apparently military spending has long been a method for directly financing companies and research that the federal government likes, such as the beginnings of computer technology.

Yes, there's been technical benefits to this spending, but it is a corrupt and immoral practice (guns vs. butter).

the point of guns vs butter is that there's a ideal balance of the two that maximises output. it's not a moral argument.

War is a moral argument. Health and welfare of society is a moral argument.

As for "maximizing output", I'm failing to see big returns here. Afghanistan? Iraq? Vietnam? The only output that was maximized was cashflow to the military industrial complex.

I do believe in national security but the way we do it is not only inefficient, but manufactures more insecurity that feeds into the cycle.

My point was different: it's that some of the so-called military spending is in reality simply a way for the federal government to fund research it wants done, without any relation to actual (direct) military applications.

The sad reality is that it is easier for people to accept a massive military budget than to accept a large National Endowment for the Sciences, or to accept direct government grants for a strategy of technical development (that would be 'government interfering in the market'). Of course, this reality was created through a lot of fear-mongering propaganda, and through a lot of anti-"socialist" propaganda.

Sure, and we're discussing it via a consequence of such a case (arpanet). But because the military by default has zero accountability, any funds that go there should be strongly vetted.

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