Timelordwho wrote:
Sorry, I was talking about their comparison to other rival countries defense budgets. It would ask the question of "Are we spending more money because we feel the need to have excessive project-able force available for deterrence/threat mitigation/emotional insecurity reasons, or do we just pay too much for an appropriate level of project-able force" This would let us form a better response; either we have a system that needs structural reform in the financing, or we should have a discussion about what level of force we should should have available.
Without knowing how we're spending the money, I don't see how you can have an intelligent discussion about how appropriate that amount is at all. Defending how our spending compares to anyone else's spending should come well
after we've determined what we're actually spending money on.
On the flip side, noticing that we're spending eight times more than anyone else and well in excess of everyone else
combined, should set off a thought "Hey, maybe we should look at those books and see if we need to be spending this much."
From either side of the aisle, I can't see how anyone can claim to be against government waste and overspending and not be trying to put the Pentagon to the wall over this. A failure to do so is an admission that appeasing the Pentagon means more to you than any meaningful attempt at fiscal responsibility.