You know what's obnoxious? People who have nothing to add but try to intimidate people into silence with bogus appeals to expertise.

What does $60 billion buy? One, maybe two aircraft carriers? And I'll bet anything that the increase in Canada's military spending is so that it can effectively patrol the newly navigable Northwest Passage, which Canada says is internal waters but the US and EU claim is international waters. So the Canadian military spending is increasing because it wants to not be pushed around quite so easily by its neighbor to the South on that issue. In this case the world system established by the United States' power is against Canada's interests, which is why it scraping together some more money for spending.

Sure there's a bit of fleecing with the contractors, but that's not the point. The United States spends so much on defense to maintain the broadly stable world order which has existed since the end of the Second World War. The US navy keeps the sea lanes clear so world trade is easier. The US military generally prevents any state actor from threatening Europe and Northeast Asia. The American taxpayer buys guns so that a large part of the rest of the world can buy butter. It's not the best deal for Americans by any means, but one must shutter to think of how the world might look if Europe felt the need to remilitarize seriously or Japan decided it needed nuclear weapons of its own to defend against North Korea or China.

Such are the burdens of hegemony.

"Sure there's a bit of fleecing with the contractors, but that's not the point"

Well it is the point if we could maintain our military superiority which is necessitated by the current world order while increasing spending on healthcare to construct a single-payer system. I think with increases in taxes and cuts to waste in defense spending, and cuts to subsidies for big corporations, this might be an achievable goal. The fact that we cut taxes in the middle of two wars is what has led to our fiscal mess.

Also it might not be such a bad thing for Europe and Japan to remilitarize if it meant more help fighting terrorism.

I obviously don't have numbers on this, but it's hard to imagine the hypothetical graft from some defense expenditures being enough to provide effective health care to over 300 million people.

I'm open to some defense cuts and the end to corporate welfare, and our tax system needs to be completely overhauled to be efficient, but even then I don't know if a European social democratic model is the answer for the United States. I mean, it's certainly cracking in Europe itself (though that could have more to do with the absurdities of how the Euro is currently structured).

As for tax cuts causing our fiscal mess, I couldn't disagree more. While the Bush tax cuts were certainly ones of choice whose utility could be debatable, the crisis we're in now exits because Baby Boomers are aging and the entitlement system won't be able to handle having so many people receiving benefits. I don't know the answer to this near existential threat, but I do know that our entitlements won't look at all the same in the future. Whether that's because of default or restructuring is what's to bee seen.

@Putin +1

"Also it might not be such a bad thing for Europe and Japan to remilitarize if it meant more help fighting terrorism. "

On that I am in complete agreement. It's time for the US to stop being the World Police.

@ Putin33

"Also it might not be such a bad thing for Europe and Japan to remilitarize if it meant more help fighting terrorism."

I completely agree. But they cannot remilitarize in their current condition. You cannot have a large military and a democratic socialist society. You will run out of money, as (this is an extreme example) the collapse of the Soviet Union showed.

"It's time for the US to stop being the World Police"

Draugnar + 1

I do not like sending our men and women in uniform to some faraway land to fight for someone else's freedom.

We almost have to be interventionist because we are alone at the top. (You could argue that Europe has some residual military might from the Cold War, but let's be serious for a minute. America is at the top by a wide margin)

*opens thread; sees debate going on*
*reads last five or so posts; no vicious ad hominems*
<impressed>

fuck off eden no one wants your clammy ass here

lol invictus: "Such are the burdens of hegemony."

that anything like kiplings white man's burden?

Yes. That beautiful poem is about shouldering a responsibility to improve others with little thanks for yourself. Kipling thought that imperialism was improving the colonized peoples by giving them infrastructure and stable governance. American military preeminence has a similar effect, with the wildly significant caveat that the United States' involvement in defending Europe and Northeast Asia (and to an extent the sea lanes) is a result of the benefiting nations desiring that partnership.

But seriously Thucydides, read that poem. Few things have been more misunderstood than it. Far from triumphalist, it's weary at the prospect of having to do for others when you get little back.

re: "The White Man's Burden"

I'd always read that as a tongue-in-cheek criticism of the policies of the time. Have to reread it and give it some more thought I suppose.

I would like to know which state actor are the USA protecting Europe from? Before anyone says Russia, I would like to point out that Russia is a country which is dying out pretty fast, has increasing problems with its muslim population, has China knocking on resource-rich Siberia, has a demoralized and ever-deteriorating military and has a leader who is not an idiot with suicidal tendencies. If it weren't for general population that wants its nation pictured as a superpower (yeah, just like in the USA), Russia would already admit that Europe is going to be its partner, not rival (if some conditions, like Central Asia being Russian playground, are met).

If there wasn't a bloated military-might benchmark in the form of the US Army, noone could seriously say that Europe is undermilitarized. Of course, our military is insufficient for stuff like encircling China, protecting Taiwan, being a substitute for Japanese army and such but then again, there's no reason for doing that in the first place. The world would not crumble if the USA focused on the essentials, i.e. economic and self-defense interests (and in the strict sense, not some all-encompasing one). Being everywhere overseeing everything is evidently not working and it costs too much money - and this problem will not fade away with time, it will grow with time passed. The world needs America that balances its current account deficit and gets into good economic shape, not America that decides which dictator may stay in power and which not.

You do know that we have a tenuous relationship with China at best, right?

And so does every country that is around it, i.e. close to one third of world population. Nevertheless, Chinese leaders have more important things to do than planning an invasion of the US soil. Not to mention that despite its dwarfed military spending vis-a-vis the USA, China is evidently more than able to project its neo-colonialist power in African resource-rich countries. Realistic interpretation of human rights is only one of the reasons for it.

"And so does every country that is around it, i.e. close to one third of world population."

Except Myanmar but that's a detail.

DAMN! NOT going to read pages worth of bullshit...but...uh...did ANY of you brainiacs realize THE GOVERNMENT DID NOT SHUT DOWN....hence the posted topic is, uh...NULL AND VOID. God damn....get another hobby, people, other than lurking on the forums about DEAD TOPICS.

@ President Eden....I'd throw a vicious ad hominem attack at you...but I'm just too tired...

@uly - We aren't talking about what they may or may not plan for the US. You asked which nationality the US is protecting Europe from. While China porbably isn't a threat to Europe, without our global military presence (and nothing to replace it), the Chinese airforce and army could easily overrun all of Asia and make that region less stable than the Middle East.

@ krellin

You need to calm down. Can you see that the debate has moved away from a hypothetical American government shutdown? I have only been on this site for a few days, and even I know that threads do not always stick to their original purpose. I think I am being more than fair to you.

@ ulytau

I agree with you, Russia is not a threat to Europe, much less the world.

The big threat Europe needs to worried about is the ever-present terrorist threat. al-Qaeda hates Europe almost as much as America.

There is also a big economic threat from China that Europe needs to be concerned about. I would agree that China is not really threatening anyone militarily, besides Taiwan and possibly Japan. The Chinese are going to wait until they have conquered the world economically before they make a military move. Hopefully, the American military will be able to counter and defeat that particular threat in the future.

We won't be able to counter that threat if we disarm ourselves.

I guess there's no point in discussing this matter with people who believe that China, a country under tremendous internal strain from ongoing phenomenons like urbanization and industrialization (on a scale that is historically unprecedented), is eagerly preparing for conquest of Asia, a feat that China never achieved even in periods when it was by far the most powerful country on Earth. Which is by the way the reason why China will be very satisfied with economic hegemony, with surrounding countries in a sort of vassalage, just like in the past.

Not to mention that Chinese gerontocracy is paranoidly afraid of any sign of civil unrest and for a good reason. A war would not be the best thing to calm the people.

Leave China to India, you are supplying them with weaponry for a reason. In the future, a natural political struggle over spheres of influence between these two giants will occur in any case.

"We won't be able to counter that threat if we disarm ourselves."

There's a lot of space between disarming and not having higher military spending than China by a factor of 6.

And القاعدة is not going to be rooted out by tanks or aircraft carriers, it's useless to confront such organization directly. As long as the intelligence agencies are doing their homework and the terrorists don't get access to WMDs, the most we have to fear about is some odd successful attack.

"Also it might not be such a bad thing for Europe and Japan to remilitarize if it meant more help fighting terrorism. "

Think about the repercussions of that scenario. A remilitarized Japan would be a dramatic reversal in the geopolitical order of Northeast Asia that has existed for nearly seventy years. China would loath a resurgent Japan and see could overreact, seeing it as an existential threat in the same way Imperial Japan was. Just the existence of a robust Japanese navy plying the same waters as the Chinese one would be a dangerous powder keg. You could even see South Korea leaning more to China's sphere of influence due to a shared history of oppression by a martial Japan.

But more importantly, what help would Japan be in fighting terrorism? What terrorists threaten Japan? Sure there was that gas attack in the subway, but you simply do not see the global jihadist movement targeting Japan at all. You expect the Japanese to spend money on a new, powerful military just so they can get involved in the tar baby of terrorism the West is grappling with? Get real.

As for Europe, there's barely political will to intervene in Libya when both national interest and potential terrorist threats are present. Why expect to see Belgian drones in Yemen with that precedent? With the current crisis in the Eurozone the future of common currency is a lot less secure than any one would like. Should Spain need a bailout and then Italy the Euro as we know it might not make it. That would place the future of the EU itself in question and strain NATO even further. Do you really want a powerful Hungarian Army as the institutions of Europe potentially erode?


It sucks that the United States has to hold up the structure of this world order on its military might, but that's simply the way the world works. Should we shrug off these responsibilities other actors will try to fill in for us. Is the world better off with authoritarian, paranoid China dominating Asia, theocratic Iran spreading its illiberal worldview in the Middle East unchecked, Russia free to nip its neighbors and turn off Europe's gas on a whim, and Europe not only rudderless but rudderless and armed? I'd love there to be a way for America to withdraw back to some 19th century idyllic foreign policy, but the world that would likely develop is to dreadful to imagine.

@ Draugnar

Of course not. I am not advocating any military spending cuts.

@ Invictus

I agree with you. As an American, I do not mind being on top of the world in terms of military strength. However, as these last few weeks have shown, we simply do not have enough money to fund the largest, most advanced military in the world and domestic programs.

You're right about that. But as they're structured now we can't afford the entitlement programs on their own. In just a few decades Medicare and Social Security will take up ALL of the money the federal government physically collects. We'd have to borrow to fund national parks, let alone a military.

These are related problems. We need to figure out a plan to preserve something like our entitlements and still be able to support the security structures we've committed ourselves to. That's gonna be really tough, but it has to happen.

Good riddance.

America was a superpower. They revolutionised the world. But now its way too democratic for them to think that the rest of the world owes them for doing so and even more idealistic to think anyone is going to keep paying. Its their own fault for pushing capitalistic greed so hard.

Even if they don't want to, England will go down with their prized offspring. They're too financially tied and politically modeled to the states to fix it now. Hopefully Canada will see its big brother for the manipulative monster it is and stop giving him the bigger slice of cake just to avoid an argument, but trade between our countries is so profitable that we'll likely keep the relationship open too long for our own good.

America's best foot is its military, but the problem is that no one wants it right now. The wars in the middle east only served to remind China that they can't beat us, but everyone but China knows China could never rule the world. History has wired their brains to look at ruling bodies so differently than ours.

Rambling. But I'm telling you. The world is changing and its going to be ugly and awesome at the same time. I just hope we can all find a safe place to watch it from.

After this post, I am done with this thread as it has degenerated into a discussion about the military.

We need to spend money on defense. We will have a military and we will have the world's largest as long as we have enemies, and as long as we are ahead of china in technology and economic power (but only for the next 10-20 years). Defense spending has been steadily decreasing since the cold war. Defense spending is not the problem with our government's fiscal policy trainwreck.

Invictus +1:
Our entitlement programs as structured are unsustainable, even if you remove all defense spending and all discretionary spending. Something drastic has to be done to change our entitlement spending system and our revenue structure.

@ Putin33
I'll actually agree with you that we need to stop being the world policeman. Let Europe and Japan militarize to protect their own interests. Sure as hell we can't avoid all conflicts though and we better win every conflict we are involved in, but we can easily stop doing things like Libya, or even Iraq, though there were some side benefits to fighting terrorists there instead of on American soil, even if I don't completely agree that we should have gone there in the first place.

So bank of america, and wells fargo, and GE paid no taxes in some recent years. Best information I can find says that they didn't have profits the years they didn't pay taxes. Big whoop. You don't pay taxes if you don't have income or purchase products do you?

Btw, if you actually read my post, you'd see that I'm advocating changing the tax structure, part of which proposed change was implementation of a consumption tax, which corporations would have to pay regardless of whether they made a profit or not.. and this would be in addition to a corporate tax on profits above say one million dollars. So in conclusion of this point, the example of Bank of America paying $0 in taxes has what to do with irresponsible government fiscal policy again?

And let's continue to sing Medicare's praises while it's headed for bankruptcy in a mere 6 years.

I hardly see the need to provide sources for you when you make claims like:
"Many doctors overcharge Medicare and skim off Medicare money."
and
"The waste that does exist, is largely due to doctors taking advantage of the system."
and
"The fact is many doctors in this country are overpaid and they overcharge for medical services."
without any sources or support of your own. I read your article and found none of those points present in that article.

You won't care about, let alone accept whatever sources I provide, but since the challenge has been made that I make up information, then for others here are my sources lest you stoop to a similar attempt to misdirect the argument away from the facts and malign my argument as "invented".

See next post in the interests of keeping the posts shorter than I have been.



How many doctors salaries are you privvy to?

disregard that last line as out of context, thought I'd removed it for inclusion in post 2.

@Leif

I agree with you on defence. It will always need to be the best and biggest in hopes that the world needs America to win a war again.

Invictus has it on the nose as you agree. It's entitlement and bloated support programs that are bleeding the US from the inside.

BUT, you're wrong about BoA, Wells Fargo, and GE. Especially GE. GE had huge profit margins and never paid a dime of tax.

I'm interested to see what you say about doctors, but I agree. Most have to pay so much in malpractice insurance that their offices are barely profitable. The corruption with them is the pharmaceutical industry.

Here is one of numerous examples of doctors discounting for those paying cash. This is where I first saw the numbers 30-50%.

http://simplecare.com/news/Nashville_Medical_News.htm

My brother is a medical student at the local university hospital, and he tells me that on at least two occasions he has heard the secretaries at check-in desk negotiating much reduced fees with patients offering to pay cash instead of go through medicare because they didn't want to fight with medicare over the claims. All 5 members of my extended family and 3 close friends who are in the medical profession all have told me at one point or another that they would rather work with private insurance than medicare. On that note, how many doctor's salaries are you privvy to? I have an aunt and uncle who are an internal medicine doc and a general surgeon. All of her salary goes to state and federal tax. After his salary covers the mortgage, property tax, malpractice insurance for both of them (btw they have been sued 3 times between them, all three frivolous cases that shouldn't have been entertained and were eventually thrown out, but still cost a pretty penny), other mandatory items like food and utilities, and tuition for their kids, he has maybe 10% of his salary left for savings and discretionary spending. They just recently had weather related property damage (that insurance refused to cover) for which they had to take out a loan to repair their house. Doctors overcharge and are overpaid eh? I don't deny there are inflated costs in healthcare, but that doesn't mean it ends up in the doctors pockets.

Source that medicare underpays for services:
http://www.acponline.org/advocacy/where_we_stand/medicare/#add
Pick one.. say:
http://www.acponline.org/advocacy/where_we_stand/medicare/8-24-10.pdf

I looked at 2 or 3 documents that were requesting that the arbitrary fee schedules be reassessed to accurately reflect the true cost of various fees.
I'll grant you that these fees are definitely inflated, but the small practice doctor's office has to pay these amounts for supplies and such and thus has to pass unreasonable costs on to patients or cease to take patients. Believe me I'm not advocating for more medicare spending to cover these costs, but the fee schedules make no attempt to track actual costs, rather percieved appropriate costs.

How about a few more from organizations with skin in the game:
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/03/14/gvsb0314.htm
http://www.aha.org/aha/content/2009/pdf/09medicunderpayment.pdf

Medicare is efficient because it only has 3% adminstrative costs vs 30% for private insurance? Not so fast..
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/CAHIMedicareTechnicalPaper.pdf
And why not one from Heritage? I doubt you'll accept any of my sources as valid anyways.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2009/06/Medicare-Administrative-Costs-Are-Higher-Not-Lower-Than-for-Private-Insurance

So you can say all you want that I don't have sources, and next you can say that my sources aren't valid, but frankly I don't care. It's not your mind I'm trying to change. I'm trying to reach people who give a damn that this country is about to go off the cliff thanks to rampant unrestrained spending in Washington.

@ Geofram, I'd like to see the numbers on BoA, Wells Fargo and GE, I haven't looked too closely at that. If that's true then that's just another reason against the current tax code and revenue system. (See my proposal in previous posts).

But let me ask again, not to you so much but rhetorically, what does the fact that these companies paid no taxes, regardless of profits, have to do with irresponsible goverment spending?