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Comment by singemonkey | Hacker News Reader

Quick and probably very inaccurate calculation

Arecibo cost $9.3 million in 1963. This is equal to $79,000,000 now (https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1963?amount=93000...).

An F-35 costs about $100 million.

Based on that, I'd be happy to give up a single F-35 to rebuild Arecibo.

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And the US is planning to purchase 2500 of those. Because 2400 are clearly not enough.

The defense budget is tiny compared to the US's welfare state programs.

It also affords the US a position as the world’s reserve currency which itself is worth trillions of dollars.

I’m not sure the ROI analysis is particularly straightforward, all things considered.

You think that removing 2 F-35s from the budget will significantly alter that calculus?

To be clear. The US' >5000 Nuclear warheads is more than enough to cement its place as the most important military power in the world.

> You think that removing 2 F-35s from the budget will significantly alter that calculus?

you think that the "don't buy 2 F-35s and fix arecibo" train of thought ends at fixing arecibo? like, if the military hawks would just give up enough budget to fix it, all the other cries to reduce their budget would cease?

come on.

I don't know if tiny is the word I'd use. ~3% is smaller than ~5%, yes, but still an absurd amount of money.

The defense budget IS a welfare program.

Corporate welfare. But as Romney says, "corporations are people, my friend".

A couple of SSBNs are all we need to assure national defense. The rest is one big jobs program.

Welfare programs promote the welfare of USA residents, which is a valid use of public funds. The defense budget is almost entirely wasted. We haven't won a war in 75 years. Our various bumbling military misadventures have killed thousands of Americans and millions of other humans. If we spent a tenth of what we spend, both we and humanity in general would be safer, happier, and more prosperous. The Pentagon is never held to account for its myriad failures, so over time it has evolved to do only one thing well: consume vast resources.

Rule of law means we must check the US Constitution for what is "a valid use of public funds". OK...

Well, it looks like war gets the public funds.

The scale of how much money the USA spends pointlessly on weapons is almost as mind boggling to comprehend as the size of the galaxy. It's depressing to imagine what we could do otherwise if all this money wasn't wasted, or if it was simply returned to taxpayers.

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