One Hundred Fifty Billion Dollars

[el freako]

Originally posted by Patroklos
(btw, I am on an 8 hour watch right now and have nothing better to do, so excuse the rant. Feel free to use whatever ammunition you think this gave you )

With pleasure

Originally posted by Patroklos
1). The figures are right about most of the money bieng used fro the military. As far as procurment (as this is what I do) we have SECURED (that is important in the world of military spending) funds for Carriers, the Littoral Warfare Ships, the converisn of 2 SLBM sub to SLGN subs, The Destroyer program is on track and paid for. Joint Strike Fighter is a go, F-22 was saved, as well as research none of us will know about for some time.

Is the money for those programs included in the $125bn or is that money for operational costs.

Originally posted by Patroklos
We know were the money is going, and it is not so much an extra expediture as a restoring the stripped military budget from the Clinton years to its needed level. The current level is no where near the highest it has been.

Needed level?, what is the needed level now that the cold war is over? - Is the 'war on terror' going to cost more than the cold war?
Also the current spending is the highest real total since the second world war:

US real spending on National Defence:
1940: $28bn
1944: $846bn
1948: $122bn
1952: $316bn
1956: $276bn
1960: $285bn
1964: $303bn
1968: $402bn
1972: $337bn
1976: $307bn
1980: $341bn
1984: $455bn
1988: $515bn
1992: $480bn
1996: $411bn
2000: $402bn
latest: $519bn

Originally posted by Patroklos
2). As far as pissing away money we could be using here in the states, liberals have would piss it away far faster here than Iraq could ever do. They have perfected sink hole spending for 30 years. I find it HILARIOUS that liberal/socialist/eurocom whatever you ares are critisizing a conservative Republican administration for throwing money away on hopeless programs. Talk about hipocrits. BTW, anyone here have any idea how many people are employed building a Destroyer, how about an Aircraft Carrier. Money on the military filters down (not 100%) because guess who we buy the majority of our stuff from.

Hmm, you don't seem to be sure of what you are saying here - I assume you mean programs like welfare spending when you say 'sinkhole spending' and 'pissing it away' - why are they failures, they also return money to the economy, and as they are directed to the pooer members of society they direct money to those more likely to consume it rather than save it
If your main contention is that these programs haven't succeeded in eliminating poverty, well they were not designed to - they are meant to alleviate poverty, just as defence spending is not meant to make a country totally safe (it can't) merely make it more difficult to attack.

Originally posted by Patroklos
3). Anyone also want to guess what it cost to play the Iraq thing the UN way for the last twelve years. We are talking at least one carrier battlegroup In the Persian Gulf at any one time. The airbases and forward deployed aircraft and troops, logistics staff, etc. ect. We easily spent over 200 billion a year maintaining those forces but that was Okay with you all. And occupation (especially when we can't do it right because we have interferance from whiny no nothing punks) takes time, it was expected to take a few years. Despite what you heard from anyone, the military always knew this (bieng obvious and all).

$200bn a year maintaining the forces around Iraq? - I think that's a wild exaggeration.
Total defence spending in the US averaged $370bn a year during 1992-2002 - are you really claiming that over half of defence spending was due to the Iraqi operations?

Originally posted by Patroklos
4). And then there is that whole thing about there being no action that would please most of you. No matter what Bush did we would still be on a similar thread listining to you spout rhetoric fron an idealogical rather than pragmatic standpoint. World sucks, people die, wars happen. Just because most of you posters live in little bubbles of peace and prosperity maintained by the very people you attack so often doesn't mean the outside word works that way.

I would like to continue to live in a bubble of peace and prosperity - and I would like to see my children live in one too, so I get alarmed when the US (by far the strongest military power around at the moment) does things that will harm it's long-term grip on power like the unilateralism and tearing up of international treaties that don't suit them, this is just the sort of behaviour that will come back and haunt us all as the US's military power follows it's economic power in slow decline (relative to the rest of the world)

Originally posted by Patroklos
And a personal note form me. All the Euros who bach at our insistance on being in contol of the Iraq operation. We are the best at this whole military thing. We pay for NATO and the UN anyways, our terms are not outrageous. UN had a plan to deal with Saddam and Iraq, it was stupid and doomed to fail and did. Ours is working, however slowely, get over it. UN did nothing but prove its incompotence, ineptitude, and deadlock over the last decade and now you want to be in charge? Are you kidding. Even when the UN does these operations most of the troops are American, under American commanders by your own mandate anyways. Stupid.

The US never contributed more than 50% of the forces to Nato so you never 'paid for it' and your contribution to the UN is 20% of it's total budget (that's when you 'remember' to pay it that is) - less than half the total paid by the EU and Japan - so your claim that the US pays for the UN is even more out of touch with reality.
The UN plan was to 'contain' Saddam - and as such it was very successful (pity about the ordinary iraqi's though, but few in the west care anyway - just as few care about the lot of those in Burma, North Korea & Zimbabwe).
As for most of the troops being American in the Balkans, that was only true for brief periods - most of the troops were european, indeed in Macedonia the situation was stabilized and the only american troop contribution was half a dozen soldiers (the logistical support is another matter though).
What worries us europeans most is the fact that the US believes it can operate outside of international bodies like the UN - it was just this sort of behaviour that led to the downfall of the League of Nations and the Concert of Europe, and as such eventually led to a major war.


In some ways I agree with you and hope that the US can build a true, functioning, democracy in the middle east but I am sceptical that the American people would be willing to pay the cost in both money and lives - the US government certainly hasn't committed enough troops or money to the Iraq project (as it also failed to do with Afghanistan)
I believe that aggressively spreading democracy would secure a safer future for all of us in the west but I doubt that the nature of democracy enables such long-term thinking with such fuzzy benefits.

[Main_Brain]

2). As far as pissing away money we could be using here in the states, liberals have would piss it away far faster here than Iraq could ever do. They have perfected sink hole spending for 30 years. I find it HILARIOUS that liberal/socialist/eurocom whatever you ares are critisizing a conservative Republican administration for throwing money away on hopeless programs. Talk about hipocrits. BTW, anyone here have any idea how many people are employed building a Destroyer, how about an Aircraft Carrier. Money on the military filters down (not 100%) because guess who we buy the majority of our stuff from.

Uhhhm yes.
And what does result?
Workers get paid until its build.
Firm invests.
And then when its built? What then?
For the Company?
Who will buy another Ship from them?
(The only Navy expanding vesides US I can recall is China, which i doubt you would sell Warships to)
Company without new Orders tend to get into Problems.
Workers facing unemployment tend to not spend their money.
According to Keynes the State would also reduce its debt now cutting Costs and reducing Debts.

I dont know. I dont see how this could help long- heck even midterm.

[uh Clem]

Before I say anything, I would like to congratulate everyone for remaining semi-civil, these topics normally explode to the point that everyone just calls everyone else names without even discussing the argument at hand.

...

2). As far as pissing away money we could be using here in the states, liberals have would piss it away far faster here than Iraq could ever do. They have perfected sink hole spending for 30 years. I find it HILARIOUS that liberal/socialist/eurocom whatever you ares are critisizing a conservative Republican administration for throwing money away on hopeless programs. Talk about hipocrits.

Noted.

Much of the criticism of Bush's profligacy has come from Republicans, btw.

[problem_child]

People still don't see that the cost of American Empire is billed to the American taxpayer, profiting only Americas 1% Corporate Elite.

[Kuciwalker]

bad troll

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Patroklos

Vietnam had nothing to do with our lack of military skill, it was that our leaders didn't have enough political skill to let us use it. in there defense though, they were only liberal democrats, can't expect too much out of them. (even with their interferance 56,000 to 2 million over 12 years makes Vietnam one of our best on record by the numbers. 2 million is Vietnams number btw, ours is 3).

This extra million is probably made of women and children.

Hardly attributable to your military skill. Can be done with machetes.

[Drake Tungsten]

A Frenchie criticizing U.S. actions in Indochina?

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
A Frenchie criticizing U.S. actions in Indochina?

Is that a critic ? Or just a statistic made more accurate ?

[DanS]

Despite all the political noise from all sides, the only president who outspent the post-WWII norm was Ronald Reagan in his first term. Bush certainly hasn't. The liberal democrats didn't.

[el freako]

Hmm, looking at the figures (from the BEA) Reagan's spending wasn't that far out of line, although it did seem to stop the rising trend:

Federal Spending as % of GDP, and change in share of GDP spent during time in office:

Kennedy/Johnson (61-64): 16.8%, -0.9%
Johnson (65-68): 17.5%, +2.6%
Nixon (69-72): 19.0%, +1.1%
Nixon/Ford (73-76): 19.9%, +0.6%
Carter (77-80): 19.7%, +0.6%
Reagan (81-84): 22.0%, +1.0%
Reagan (85-88): 21.6%, -1.3%
Bush Snr (89-92): 21.5%, +1.7%
Clinton (93-96): 21.4%, -1.7%
Clinton (97-00): 19.3% -2.0%
Bush W (01-present): 19.7%, +2.2%

GWB has presided over the sharpest rise in Federal government spending (relative to GDP) since Lyndon Johnson.

However he has also cut taxes, so the deterioration in the Federal Budget Balance has been huge under his presidency:

Change in Federal Budget Balance as % of GDP during time of presidency:

Kennedy/Johnson (61-64): +0.1%
Johnson (65-68): -0.1%
Nixon (69-72): -2.8%
Nixon/Ford (73-76): -0.5%
Carter (77-80): +0.8%
Reagan (81-84): -2.4%
Reagan (85-88): +1.9%
Bush Snr (89-92): -1.9%
Clinton (93-96): +3.2%
Clinton (97-00): +3.2%
Bush W (00-present): -5.5%

[DanS]

ef: You need to include the 50s in there too, which had higher federal spending than now. From that you have a pretty good view of the post-war norm. It's not a one-way march to big government. We've had higher spending levels and lower spending levels. But overall, the spending pattern has been very stable.

GWB has presided over the sharpest rise in Federal government spending (relative to GDP) since Lyndon Johnson.

Federal spending this fiscal year is something like 20.3% of GDP (according to the Washington Post article I linked in the GDP thread, not DanS verified because the numbers haven't come out yet), which would be a 1 percentage point increase from Clinton. If my math is right, and using your figures for the later years, similar increases have happened under Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan. In other words, this isn't such a novel thing as it might seem from your commentary.

[el freako]

Originally posted by DanS
ef: You need to include the 50s in there too, which had higher federal spending than now. From that you have a pretty good view of the post-war norm. It's not a one-way march to big government. We've had higher spending levels and lower spending levels.

Actually I excluded the 1950's for three reasons, 1st they were at a lower level before the rise in the 1960's, 2nd I didn't want to make the section too big, and third I wasn't sure of the name of the presidents

But here is the relevant data (average spending, change in spending, change in budget balance - all as % of GDP):

Truman? (49-52): 16.0%, +2.6%, +0.8%
Eisenhower? (53-56): 16.4%, -1.7%, +0.7%
Esienhower? (57-60): 16.7%, +1.2%, -1.2%

Originally posted by DanS
Federal spending this fiscal year is something like 20.3% of GDP (according to the Washington Post article I linked in the GDP thread, not DanS verified because the numbers haven't come out yet), which would be a 1 percentage point increase from Clinton. If my math is right, and using your figures for the later years, similar increases have happened under Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan. In other words, this isn't such a novel thing as it might seem from your commentary.

Maybe I should clarify my data sources,
The data is from the BEA dataset - the share of GDP is the average of the quarterly data for the period stated, the change in the share of GDP is the change from the last quarter of the previous period to the last quarter of the current one.

So, for example Clinton's 1st term was calculated thus:
The share of spending was the average for the period Q1 1993 to Q4 1996
The change in spending was the difference between Q4 1992 and Q4 1996

So GWB's average doesn't look that different compared to Clinton's second term as it started low and rose whereas Clinton's started high and fell.


Please feel free to check my results using the data at the BEA (you'll need table's 1.1 and 3.2) - or I could email you the spreadsheet I used if you want.

[Kropotkin]

Taking all those money and throw overseas will do wonders to keep down inflation. Another economic stroke of genius from Bushie-boy!

[DanS]

Originally posted by el freako


Actually I excluded the 1950's for three reasons, 1st they were at a lower level before the rise in the 1960's, 2nd I didn't want to make the section too big, and third I wasn't sure of the name of the presidents

But here is the relevant data (average spending, change in spending, change in budget balance - all as % of GDP):

Truman? (49-52): 16.0%, +2.6%, +0.8%
Eisenhower? (53-56): 16.4%, -1.7%, +0.7%
Esienhower? (57-60): 16.7%, +1.2%, -1.2%

Well, OK. But please note that Bush 41 is only 5/8 through his term, so it's a little unfair comparison at this point. We haven't even finished the spending bills for fiscal year '04, which began at the start of October. From my source (ours don't seem to match very well) there were 4 years in the 50s where federal gov't spending was higher as a percentage of the economy than now. From '48 to '53, federal spending increased 10 percentage points!

Some individual years make Bush look like a spending increase amateur. The '50-'51 increase was 4.6 percentage points, immediately followed by another 3.4 percentage point increase in '51-'52!

[DanS]

Hmmm... There seems to be something weird going on here with your source. I remember that Reagan's deficits were something like 6% of the economy at their worst, but the accounts you reference show 4.71% at its worst. Could be the fiscal year/calendar year difference, I guess.