A lot of military contracts are basically jobs programs for various congressional districts, and there's no doubt that the non-competitive nature of some of the bidding inflates costs.

If we dialed back our military spending and scope of operations we might actually be able to make up for some of that lost demand if our allies start to arm themselves. If Japan had to field a military instead of relying on us where do they start getting that equipment? Same with Europe, etc.

It's not going to be a break even, but I think that we have to start winding down our military expenditure over time and step back from the position as world's cop.

Trump is dumb about a lot of stuff (trade deals and immigration for example) but on a lot of military foreign policy I think he's quite rational and much more of a dove than Hillary. I think he's right about NATO being outdated and a dangerous alliance to be a part of, I think he's right about being willing to at least speak to N. Korea.

5/18/2016 8:05:16 PM

Wasteful defense spending could be its own thread. Hell, it could be its own subforum website.

There are a variety of things that cause it...on actual operating budgets, the 2 big killers are "pots of money" and "use it or lose it."

The acquisitions side has a whole slew of things that make it expensive and inefficient. I work in it, and I don't fully understand it myself...and at any rate, it's a complicated discussion that doesn't belong in a thread about how much Trump sucks and how I personally lose respect for those who support him.

5/18/2016 8:26:03 PM

this is chit chat, deal with it

5/18/2016 8:27:56 PM

I'm shocked there isn't a Donald Trump/sunglasses deal with it GIF all over the place.

5/18/2016 8:39:53 PM

but these are problems trump says he will solve

5/18/2016 8:40:05 PM

she's lump (2x)

5/18/2016 8:49:51 PM

Quote :

"I just don't see how someone can claim a natural right to someone else's service. "

Because no man is an island...

We only have civilized society because 15,000 years ago people realized it was easier to survive in groups, than as individuals. So because we essentially MUST rely on other people for survival, there are "social contracts" we accept just by being born in a society, that includes forgoing some of our own personal freedoms to be a part of this society.

5/18/2016 9:00:13 PM

You can't claim an individual consents to a contract if you have to put a gun to his head to make him comply.

5/18/2016 10:04:03 PM

Why not? The analog to early civilization is ostracization from the group, or death. If you don't want to live by society's rules, then you suffer the consequences, this is literally how it's always been. Democratic governments came about because once you have enough people, de facto rules and mob rule aren't good enough, you need some semblance or order to these implicit agreements.

If you don't like a rule, you try to change it, if you can't change it, you suck it up or leave. But the existence of rules aren't an anomaly or an intrusion.

5/19/2016 2:51:41 AM

He isn't arguing against rules.

5/19/2016 1:45:05 PM

Opting out isn't an option.

5/19/2016 2:24:32 PM

Quote :

"You've got to stop painting people who try to make rational sense as cold and uncaring. "

You've got to stop assuming that the government spending money can only be for evil and something unaffordable.

Same fuckstick argument has our national infrastructure in shambles.

[Edited on May 19, 2016 at 3:09 PM. Reason : .]

5/19/2016 3:08:51 PM

*by government spending, I obviously mean non-military, non-oil industry, etc. spending.

'cuz that shit make jerbs

5/19/2016 5:26:06 PM

Where does this idea that we are going to be drafting people to be doctors against their will even come from?

Plenty of people work for government money voluntarily.

5/19/2016 5:29:21 PM

he's saying that since doctors offer a service many people can't afford, guaranteeing that service to all people is going to either force them to provide some of that service for free (lower cost of care) or force someone else to pay for it (higher taxes)

5/19/2016 5:41:32 PM

no system can provide more service at a lower cost than the free market

not the bullshit system we have now. a true free market.

5/19/2016 5:45:04 PM

you're never going to get equal care for everyone anyway. there will be some doctors who refuse to operate in the medicare system, they will provide better service, folks who can afford their service will go to them. progressives will cry foul and we'll start it all over again.

5/19/2016 5:49:11 PM

But it's questionable if we could ever have a true free market in healthcare. A true free market requires a somewhat level playing field in terms of knowledge of the good or service being provided and it requires the consumer to be able to shop around.

If I were being carted into the hospital for chest pain I damn sure wouldn't know what medicine/procedure/test is needed and what is superfluous and I damn sure ain't gonna be shopping around.

Insurance is similar. How many insurance companies were producing absolute shit plans before some of the obamacare provisions started kicking in? Heinous.

5/19/2016 5:54:54 PM

i think i'd rather take my chances at the free market hospital than the one run by the federal government

5/19/2016 6:02:01 PM

Well I guess that's your prerogative.

But let me ask you: is there any situation where you might consider that a participatory, community-input based entity might function better than a Market?

Be it water/sewer/sanitation ( this one, in particular, is important for me as it ultimately convinced me to embrace non market entities in certain situations)

All the way up to providing defense, enforcing contracts, or combating complex problems like climate change or AIDS/Ebola/zika prevention?

Or is the free market the answer to all problems on Gods green earth?

5/19/2016 10:10:22 PM

I would consider it. I think there is a free market solution to most problems. It may not be the best solution for every single problem, but certainly that is the best approach to the majority of issues. In the long run, I think the free market provides the most bang for your buck and protects individual liberty. I think most things should be left up to state and local governments, preferably with as much left to local governments as possible. That gives the people the most control over govt and keeps the govt in check. It makes it more feasible for individuals to move to communities that get it right, which will force the ones who get it wrong to adjust.

Mainly, I just want us to write a rulebook and follow it. If the People have decided that healthcare is a right for everyone in the United States, then let's amend our Constitution. That's what they had to do with income tax and the 16th Amendment.

5/19/2016 10:44:50 PM

The only reason we're able to even sit here and discuss the feasibility of healthcare as a right is the wealth of our nation, which we owe to the free market.

[Edited on May 19, 2016 at 10:48 PM. Reason : This is the cycle of things. It's nothing new. ]

[Edited on May 19, 2016 at 10:54 PM. Reason : I hate the fedl govt so much, I had a vasectomy just to deprive them of a future taxpayer ]

5/19/2016 10:47:57 PM

I do support the federal govt controlling national defense. I think we have gone way beyond "defense" with our current military.

5/19/2016 11:14:43 PM

Quote :

" which we owe to the free market"

And the government, Lots of countries have a free market and weren't as successful as the US, because they didn't have our government.

Also worth pointing out that Apple, Microsoft, and Intel (and tons of other megacorps still around today) were founded and thrived under 50-70% top marginal tax rates.

5/20/2016 3:43:44 PM

I disagree. The US has been successful in spite of the federal govt meddling in the market, not because of.

5/20/2016 3:50:21 PM

What are you basing that belief on?

The commonly cited scenario is turn of the 20th century labor conditions, "The Jungle", etc.. We had a river catch on fire before the EPA existed, there's the Battle of Blair Mountain (which was also a government failure, but a good example of corporatism run amuck). The economy was much more volatile before monetarist policies were implemented. You had the nationalization of factories during WWII that helped kick start women in the workplace, you had New Deal programs that built infrastructure throughout the country, telecomm standards that required communications infrastructure everywhere (even places where it was very costly).

Certainly government has created tons of problems (that every country faces-- these are human problems mostly), but i don't think we would have been the economic success without these actions and more, maybe too successful in some ways.

5/20/2016 5:49:13 PM

Not to mention the numerous technological jumps that came from government funding and/or research

5/20/2016 6:29:54 PM

Nevermind, you guys have convinced me. What we need is more government.

5/20/2016 7:21:01 PM

Ha, i'm not saying we need more government. But having a big/small government isn't a factor in whether we'll thrive as a country. Just having competent government of any size is what's important.

5/20/2016 7:36:10 PM

Quote :

"Just having competent government of any size is what's important."

We have a winner!

Too bad a not insignificant number of elected officials believe government to be incapable of anything other than total failure and are working hard to make that the case.

5/20/2016 7:39:44 PM

^^^ Think about shrinking the military, for example. Yeah, this is a great idea (frees up money for other stuff), but our large military is critical to significant elements of our foreign and domestic policy. We couldn't run as big of a debt as we do if our military was smaller (not necessarily a bad thing), but our military also defends probably most other countries on earth, either directly or indirectly, which means we have instant clout with those countries.

If the US didn't have this influence over the politics of the rest of the world, it would negatively impact domestic business' ability to do international trade, for example. It would also leave room for China or Russia or some other country to exert their own influence (like China is already doing in Africa-- we're missing out there which could be a problem in a few decades). So we couldn't shrink our military without changing a lot of other policy, a lot of which would allow Russia/China/EU to eclipse us.

Another example is in education. The US is already falling behind here, a good metric is in scientific papers published. We were the world leader, but other countries are eclipsing us, and growing faster than us (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ezZbKNOabmE/VEqURNUXpbI/AAAAAAAAdmw/d_RMxSbM6z4/s1600/papers%2Bper%2Byear%2Bper%2Bcountry.jpg). You have German and other european countries offering their residents free college tuition, while enrollments in the US are dropping. We have a free market higher ed system here, and private colleges don't have better tuition than the public institutions. Education loan companies are maximizing revenues instead of access. It doesn't seem to me like a "small government" approach would keep American competitive in this area.

5/20/2016 7:57:06 PM

Quote :

"Too bad a not insignificant number of elected officials believe government to be incapable of anything other than total failure and are working hard to make that the case."

Yeah, that's the problem.

I mean it couldn't be unchecked bloat, inefficiency, perverse incentives, etc.

Look man, the problem is largely because of unelected officials and bureacrats. All you have to do is look and see how many programs or departments have ever gone away after they have been started. There's virtually no such thing as a temporary government action. Once it's started everyone involved has a vested interest in making sure it stays in place.

You know that even though we are winding down the drug war slowly and even though the current administration has finally calmed down on going after dispensaries in states were marijuana is legal that the DEA's budget isn't going to get smaller, or if it is they'll simply roll that money over to the FBI, ATF, etc. or they'll shift focus/mission to other things. I suspect that the huge ginned up panic over "human trafficking" is to help federal and state agencies justify their budgets. It's a vanishingly small problem despite the attempt to classify any and all sex work as human trafficking. But, it rings bells with the public, it's an easy story generator for the media, and it allows agencies to scream for more funding.

I actually think a lot of elected officials at least start off wanting to do some good and earnestly believe in at least some of the stuff they talk about on the campaign trail, but once they get in place they realize just how little they can actually impact and how much time and money it takes to get re-elected.

5/20/2016 8:00:28 PM

The federal government employs the fewest number of those metastasizing bureaucrats since sometime in the 1960s.

5/20/2016 9:56:14 PM

Ehh, I wasn't talking so much about total number of employees as I was the money they spend. The federal employment numbers are a bit suspect as well since they don't include contractors who are paid by the federal gov. but aren't counted as employees. What's a bit astonishing is that the CBO doesn't even know how many contractors they employ.

http://federalnewsradio.com/management/2015/03/how-many-contractors-does-the-government-have/

Again, I don't really care about the number of employees as I do about the constant growth of government expenditure.

[Edited on May 20, 2016 at 10:40 PM. Reason : and yes, I know that total fed expenditure has dropped a couple times, but he overall trend is up]

5/20/2016 10:37:19 PM

I guess it's easy to blame nameless unelected officials and bureaucrats for the money they spend, but they're spending money budgeted by elected officials on programs, departments, and actions created by elected officials.

Meanwhile, it's no secret that one party in particular spends a lot of energy labeling everything they disagree with (which is starting to add up to nearly everything it seems) as products of government overreach, executive fiat, judicial activism, liberal bias, world-wide scientific conspiracies, etc. By design or not, these people are actively undermining the idea that our government is capable of functioning, and those ideas are starting to move beyond to rhetoric to true belief.

5/21/2016 12:19:33 AM

What a mendacious multiple-time-backtracking hypocrite

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-income-tax-returns-once-became-public-they-showed-he-didnt-pay-a-cent/2016/05/20/ffa2f63c-1b7c-11e6-b6e0-c53b7ef63b45_story.html

5/21/2016 3:08:43 AM

trump using immigrant workers or tax loop holes doesn't make him a hypocrite, it makes him a smart businessman. He wants to end the loop holes because anyone who doesn't hate money is going to use them.

5/21/2016 4:25:57 AM

Do you think the future red emperor has possibility to challenge Putin and Russia like the Cuba missile crisis in the last century? And potentially throw nuclear bomb at each other? That would be very very scary.

5/21/2016 6:43:42 AM

Quote :

"it's no secret that one party in particular spends a lot of energy labeling everything they disagree with (which is starting to add up to nearly everything it seems) as products of government overreach, executive fiat, judicial activism, liberal bias, world-wide scientific conspiracies, etc. By design or not, these people are actively undermining the idea that our government is capable of functioning, and those ideas are starting to move beyond to rhetoric to true belief."

they may beat that drum but once elected they fund it at a higher level than the year before so it obviously BS they say for votes

5/21/2016 7:44:14 AM

Quote :

"Ehh, I wasn't talking so much about total number of employees as I was the money they spend. The federal employment numbers are a bit suspect as well since they don't include contractors who are paid by the federal gov. but aren't counted as employees. What's a bit astonishing is that the CBO doesn't even know how many contractors they employ."

That's not really astonishing. They contract a job to get done and an amount to pay for it. How many people is up to the contractor.

5/21/2016 8:03:31 AM

I just realized trump has made me not care when politicians lie about things. Was in Google news, saw a headline that Bill Clinton misrepresented his economy in Kentucky, but caught myself thinking "what does that even matter, trump lies about almost everything an no one cares" and I just skipped the article.

5/21/2016 11:31:25 AM

^^ He's talking about the contractors that we continually employ...eg we have a bunch of contractors in IT. customer support, networking etc

[Edited on May 21, 2016 at 11:38 AM. Reason : projects we contract out are another [and more expensive i'd bet] beast]

5/21/2016 11:35:20 AM

5/21/2016 11:41:55 AM

Quote :

"they may beat that drum but once elected they fund it at a higher level than the year before so it obviously BS they say for votes"

Government spending has been ~20% of GDP since forever.

5/21/2016 8:09:55 PM

Trump is now like this:

5/22/2016 8:14:42 AM

^^^^Oh I'm aware. I've seen jobs go from contract to GS and vice versa.

and yeah, I mean...I work for a huge company as an employee, and am ultimately a "federal contractor." You're drawing a line between jobs like mine and more individual positions, but I don't think it makes any difference, for a couple of reasons. One is that the great majority (if not all?) of those contracts are contracted out to companies. Whether it's Lockheed-Martin, General Dynamics, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop-Grumman...or ABC-123 Technologies, with a dozen employees, it doesn't really make any difference. Even if the position is contracted directly to the federal gov't, without any company involved (which I can't ever recall seeing), the same principle applies: if it's a contract, the gov't doesn't and shouldn't care how many bodies--only how many dollars.

Federal jobs are a different thing, because of the benefits, pensions, etc. Number of bodies makes a difference there.

[Edited on May 22, 2016 at 11:05 AM. Reason : ]

5/22/2016 11:05:29 AM

Quote :

"Well I guess that's your prerogative. But let me ask you: is there any situation where you might consider that a participatory, community-input based entity might function better than a Market? Be it water/sewer/sanitation ( this one, in particular, is important for me as it ultimately convinced me to embrace non market entities in certain situations) All the way up to providing defense, enforcing contracts, or combating complex problems like climate change or AIDS/Ebola/zika prevention? Or is the free market the answer to all problems on Gods green earth?"

I think it's important to point out that free markets don't bring the best for everyone, a rationally controlled and regulated free market does, rationally being the operative word.

For your water remark, see "Flint, Michigan."

Enforcing contracts falls under the "rationally controlled and regulated point."

Regarding your AIDS point, the counterpoint would be the crack epidemic in the 80s that was absolutely unleashed by the government. Or at least incredibly exacerbated.

A properly regulated free market likely would be the best solution to most problems, but not all. It only works where there's a profit motive. That's one of the reasons we have government - to provide services that free enterprise won't because it's not profitable.

5/26/2016 12:23:53 AM

Quote :

" if it's a contract, the gov't doesn't and shouldn't care how many bodies--only how many dollars."

For the staffing contracts I'm familiar with (unlike the product contracts), the contracts are written based on the number of bodies they're providing us, and the skillsets of those bodies. And the contracts are subject to a bidding process yearly, based on the same metrics.

5/26/2016 12:33:43 AM

Except the government keeps a secret aids vaccine in Dulce Base

5/26/2016 6:41:27 AM

Trump keeps saying dumb things, i was worried winning the nom and him "moving towards the center" might make him more appealing, but doesn't seem to be the case.

5/26/2016 10:35:06 PM