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House GOP Unveils Budget With Trillions in Cuts to Medicaid, Food Benefits, and More
(www.commondreams.org)
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this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Politics
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Why can't we cut military spending instead? It's definitely going to shitty contractors and not to veteran health care anyway
The MIC will never release it's chokehold on the House; both Ds and Rs support bills to raise the DoD's budget.
They couldn't pass a military spending bill today either.
We only spend about 3% of our gdp on defense. That’s below most other countries. We are obligated to spend at least 2% due to treaty obligations.
Only? The US accounts for 40% of all military spending in the world. We are at nearly 3 times second place, China, $876 billion to $290 billion. Considering the US has the most billionaires and compilation of billionaire wealth, I really don't think GDP is the great earmark you are portraying it as.
And? We only have the largest gdp and a professional army.
GDP is the standard used.
Look at Ukraine and you will see the money has been well spent. A small country has been able to fight off a previous super power for over a year.
That’s only with a 3% spend. So I fully support the military as it also paid for my education.
GDP isn’t the end-all be-all for economic performance. Consider that real estate also contributes to GDP, and we have been getting some fucking expensive housing in recent years. It doesn’t equate to more money, so it’s effectively padding our GDP. All GDP does is give a rough estimation of how much a country is valued at best, and at worst it’s a padding game to show who has the biggest number.
If you want a good indicator for how well a country is doing economically, CPI is a better start than GDP - which, by the way, China is fucking decimating the US in that regard. Their reported CPI is around 100 points while the US is at around 300 points. You generally want lower CPI as it indicates inflation if it’s super high like the US.
Just a side note but Ukraine isn't a small country
Compare it to Russia and its small
Russia is 28 times the size of Ukraine.
Ukraine has 42 million people. Russia has 142 million people.
These are not minor differences.
Compare Russia to Africa and it's small. One thing being larger doesn't make another thing small, just smaller
I have no clue what point you’re trying to make. Russia isn’t at war with Africa. Russia is at war with Ukraine. It’s about 3 times larger than Ukraine.
Yet, you talk about Africa as if it’s relevant or even a coherent statement.
It most certainly is. Nobody's talking about geography when they say it's a small country. They're 8th in Europe in population and 26th in GDP. That's small when repelling a Russian invasion.
Subtract the “defense” costs that are paid for by other means in most of the world (healthcare, education, medical research), adjust the rest for purchasing power parity, and get back to me on that.
We spend 3.5% of our GDP on defense and that's actually far more than most countries. We have the 6th highest GPD to military spending ratio in the world. The countries who spend more of their GDP are relativity tiny. They amount to 11% of the total global spending on defense vs the USA's 39%.
The second largest GDP is China- they spend 1.6% of their GDP on defense. Third is Japan @ 1.1%... You get the idea.
Regarding the 2% NATO obligation- most members don't make it so it doesn't seem to be a real obligation.