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Comment by PaulDavisThe1st | Hacker News Reader

A lot of Democrats (not all, for sure) would be very happy to massively cut defense expenditure, which is a vast slice of federal expenditure.

Alas, that has two problems: (1) US military spending is our own national version of socialism, in which we prop up communities by providing massive state subsidies, along with housing, healthcare, education and more to a large group of people (2) because of (1), it is hard to convince elected representatives to cut these expenditures because of the very real and direct impact they will have on their communities.

Although both D & R representatives experience the above somewhat equally, there is some imbalance in the relationship between D & R representatives and the military-industrial complex, and that leads to us to a situation where cutting these expenditures is even more difficult than it would be if the only factors were 1+2 above.

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>would be very happy to massively cut defense expenditure, which is a vast slice of federal expenditure.

Just to undersocre two details that are often forgotten in discussions about how huge the U.S military budget is:

1st: as a percentage of GDP per capita, the U.S. spends less than at least two other countries and only moderately more than several others that aren't normally considered war-loving. (Singapore and Qatar for example).

2nd and more important: Of the total U.S. federal budget, military spending is far from the largest single outlay. Social services in the form of health services in general, social security, income security and medicare in particular take up much, much more Together any one of them (except medicare but smaller only by a tiny margin) is larger than the total defense budget, in some of those cases by a huge margin. Hell, even the total federal education budget for 2023 was nearly the size of the total defense budget.

Overall, of the total 6.3 trillion federal budget for 2023 at least, military spending accounted for just over 10%. A lot for a country as rich as the U.S. but not to the scale implied by a a lot of hyperbole.

Cutting military alone wouldn't fix anything.

Everybody has their own pet issues they want to cut.

The reality is only broad taxes on the middle class or massive social spending can really change the long term situation.

Not that cutting military spending wouldn't be smart.

There are a lot of Ron Swansons out there, who simultaneously decry big government and make their living directly from government spending.

> The reality is only broad taxes on the middle class or massive social spending can really change the long term situation.

Why the middle class, which has mostly been taxed into not existing? How about the upper class? As Warren Buffett says, they've won the class war, and gone a bit far with it. The lower classes are being depleted of their productivity through a kind of tragedy of the commons as they're relentlessly squeezed from above.

>Why the middle class, which has mostly been taxed into not existing?

Because that's not how the American middle class died? The American middle class died when upper management sold your solid career to the Chinese for a quick buck, and spent all the windfall on enriching themselves for decades. It's amazing you cite Warren Buffet while saying that, who commonly calls for higher taxes on the wealthy.

> It's amazing you cite Warren Buffet while saying that, who commonly calls for higher taxes on the wealthy.

From what I can tell you misread my post.

> Why the middle class, which has mostly been taxed into not existing?

With middle class I mean the population at large.

> How about the upper class?

Again, because it simply doesn't work. Its a leftist fantasy to 'tax the billionaires' or 'tax the top 1%'.

Yes of course you can make the tax progressive and collect more from those groups. But that simply want get it done.

This is my point. Everybody has their pet peeve, their pet group or whatever. But that's simply not realistic.

The only thing that can balance the budget are either broad taxes on most of the population, or massive cuts in social spending. Yes, you might not like it, but its true anyway.

> As Warren Buffett says

Buffett can say whatever he likes, it doesn't change the numbers.

Go on the most extreme socialist tax the rich spree, eliminate billionaires take all their wealth. Have fun. Then add lots of new taxes for the Top 10%, have fun.

All of that helps, but doesn't change the fundamentals.

You simply can't have large European welfare state and not have much of the population to pay for it. And the US has such a large welfare state in terms of what they pay, even if not in the outcome.

Most of this I do not disagree with this, but the fact that you do not even mention cuts in defense spending stands out to me. It may be "unrealistic", but then so are cuts to social security, medicare and medicaid.

Defense spending is not just a "pet peeve". We spend more on national defense than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan, and Ukraine — combined. There is ample scope to reduce our defense spending by massive amounts without threatening our national security.

You're really not accounting for scale. My pet peeve is the US military, your pet peeve (might be) subsidized cell phone service for low income people. One of these things is not like the other.

Again. Yes, some people have dumb theories. And yes, military is one of the best places to cut. The point still stands, you simply, can't get there with just military cuts.

Not just ... perhaps. But this is a major part of the puzzle.

Meanwhile, sure I support higher taxes on the middle class up (but MUCH higher taxes on the top 10% and MUCH MUCH higher taxes on the top 1% and above).

That needs to be coupled to a clear vision of what people are going to get as a result.

The active duty military vote is not actually a solid republican voting block, contrary to popular belief: in 2020, they swung +8 for Biden [1]. It’s the veterans who are solidly (2/3) conservative, currently, but even that’s lessening [2].

Unfortunately I don’t think a majority of either party wants to reign in military spending, considering every admin including Obama and Biden has increased it since Carter, even though likely granting such a blank check is financially irresponsible (i.e. trillions unaccounted for in budget audits [3]). Both parties just want to please that bloc of votes, because it also has ripple effects on the rest of the nation’s votes to be seen as “good on military”.

I personally think our military could be just as effective if we tightened the wallet, but I don’t think either party actually wants to.

[1] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/10/14/military-... and https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1245542

[2] https://news.gallup.com/poll/118684/military-veterans-ages-t... (2009, but the trend has only gotten deeper)

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pentagon-fails-audit-sixth-...

Just to be clear, I wasn't for a moment suggesting that the military itself is a solid R (or D) voting bloc.

What is true, however, is the most (not all) communities with a functioning US military base close by is a solid voting bloc for NOT cutting military expenditures, at least not insofar as they could lead to base closures (and specifically, their base).

The Democrats were much more interested in cutting military budgets until, you know, all that fun with Russia... and China... and Israel. We are very quickly remembering why we spend so much.

The American military budget is mostly the "America guarantees everyone can do business with anyone else (but mostly America) so that we can be very wealthy" budget. Remember that we built and sailed the Great White Fleet before world war 1.

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