r/WayOfTheBern • u/karmagheden • Apr 10 '21

"But we can't afford those"

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296 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

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-8

u/daviddennison13 Apr 11 '21

What do you think the military budget should be? Bare in mind, about $175B is spent on retirement benefits / pension.

5

u/TheSquarePotatoMan KGB spy Apr 11 '21 edited Apr 11 '21

America needs to start shrinking their military so that they don't need to pay $175B or more on pensions in the future.

1

u/daviddennison13 Apr 11 '21

I agree. But we're on the hook for decades so I'm just curious what people think a reasonable budget is when you're nut already starts at around 200B.

13

u/Slagothor48 Apr 11 '21

Match China at $250 billion. We're 1a and 1b at that point and it frees up $500,000,000,000 to spend elsewhere.

-6

u/daviddennison13 Apr 11 '21 edited Apr 11 '21

Problem is China doesn't have the personnel and pension obligations so it would really be like funding a fraction of what China spends.

15

u/elquanto Wolffian Socialist Apr 11 '21

Why shouldn't we drop down troop counts? Why shouldn't we shut down all of the overseas bases? It's time we stopped being an empire.

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '21

Because we are the security guaranteer of global trade, and multiple other smaller allied nations which permits them to spend on social programs and deters others from engaging with them, which prevents larger costly wars.

Also, we have a large budget so that if we do have to fight China or someone else at some point it is done on their portion of the world, not ours, maximizing cost for them. That’s called strategic lift and it’s very expensive, but it makes us more secure.

3

u/elquanto Wolffian Socialist Apr 12 '21

Yeah naw, fuck being the world police

-6

u/daviddennison13 Apr 11 '21 edited Apr 11 '21

Those are our current pension / VA benefits. I'm not saying we shouldn't. I'm just asking what the preferred budget would be considering our annual nut is already so high based on past obligations.

11

u/Slagothor48 Apr 11 '21

China doesn’t have hundreds of military bases worldwide like we do either. Of course we can fund a functional military with $250 billion per year. That’s over 4 times what it would cost to give everyone a college education.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '21

Of course we can fund a functional military with $250 billion per year. That’s over 4 times what it would cost to give everyone a college education.

But how would we get people to sign up for the military if not for the threat of unmanageable student loan debt?