Comment by parkingrift | Hacker News Reader

Comment by parkingrift | Hacker News Reader

>After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the U.S. dollar finally loses its special status as the world's reserve currency. Suddenly, the cost of imports soars. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget.

It's funny and interesting that the military budget is such a common punching bag. The defense budget is a pretty small percentage of the overall outlays. Yet people continue to act like it's the single line item that is holding America back.

Here's where the American federal government spent money in 2020.

* $1T on unemployment compensation and paycheck protection program

* $1.1T on social security

* $1.2T on medicare and medicaid

* $1T on "other" which includes federal employee retirements and welfare programs

* $900B on non-defense discretionary spending on thing such as housing assistance, transportation, and education.

...and then, finally, we get to defense spending at $700B.

The budget deficit for FY2020 was $3.1T. Maybe the military budget is so high it is causing a ripple in the multiverse that makes arithmetic different in this universe. Maybe if we cut $300B from the military budget in our universe it will even out to $3T because magic.

In 2019 the defense budget would have been #3 on your list, under only Social Security and Medicare + Medicaid. Perhaps using a pandemic year with extra outlays to avoid economic collapse is not the best way to discuss overall government spending.

In typical years the Defense spending is equal to each of the discretionary non-defense spending and "other" mandatory spending which excludes Medicare + Medicaid and Social Security. Medicare + Medicaid and Social Security spending have certainly increased the most and that seems to be inline with the increased spending on health care over the last few decades.

It's also worth noting that the non-defense categories still include defense related spending like veterans' income security, benefits, and services.

Income security spend was much higher in 2020 than prior years:

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55343 - 2018

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56325 - 2019

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57171 - 2020

> ...and then, finally, we get to defense spending at $700B.

just a small reminder that $700B is less than the bank bailout of 2008/2009 which straddled both a Republican and Democrat president. That's in the top 5 most outrageous things in my lifetime (so far).

what you conveniently left out was that its only less by $100B (also one time vs recurring). Secondly it happened at the hand of a republican president and the democrat had to clean up the mess made by republican as always. one more thing the bank bailout was absolutely necessary if you did not want economy to collapse into a depression but none of the conservatives ever talk about all the banking deregulation (like graham beach leahy & glass stegal) that actually led to the conditions where financial system became so fragile that it had to be bailed out. Also, Govt actually made money on the TARP bailout after the funds were mostly returned.

Those figures are required expenditures, not budgets. They represent agreements between tax-paying citizens/employees and the government. The military's funding is variable and not required - the Constitution doesn't even support a centralized military. You're equating very different things.

No, I'm not. I specifically said spending and outlays. If you want to lawyer your way into a discretionary vs non-discretionary argument, have at it. I find it pointless in most scenarios, and especially in the context of this article.

In this hypothetical scenario where America can't borrow money or easily run a deficit, it won't matter at all whether a line item is discretionary or non-discretionary. Cutting the military budget won't magically help anything.

> the Constitution doesn't even support a centralized military

Yes, it does. It just says that military appropriations for the Army have to be approved by Congress every two years. Congress controls the purse strings, the President has command.

Article I, Section 8:

"The Congress shall have power...To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy..."

Note that the Navy is not even subject to the two year limit on funding.

My wording is imprecise. You're right, what I suppose I meant to say was a standing centralized military. Those powers are to originally allow the funding of armies that are later disbanded, this attitude is also reflected in the 2nd amendment support of militias.

Navy was a different consideration at the time since it protects trade, which is required for commerce afaik.

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