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View Full Version : Republicans Who Cut Defense Spending



Conley
08-13-2011, 08:21 PM
"Indeed, a series of charts in "A Return to Responsibility," a report by the Center for American Progress, shows that it is Republican presidents, not Democrats, who have mandated significant cuts in defense spending. Eisenhower cut 27 percent overall, Nixon 29 percent, and President Bush H.W. Bush, who served only one term, 17 percent. Even Ronald Reagan, who lavished money on the Pentagon with the express purpose of bankrupting the Soviets, cut the budget by 10 percent during his second term. The great exception to the rule is George W. Bush, who increased spending by an astonishing 70 percent during his tenure. If we include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States now spends $700 billion a year on defense, a figure that, translated into constant dollars, was last reached in World War II."

Interesting stuff

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/12/can_obama_be_just_like_ike

Mister D
08-13-2011, 08:34 PM
We are spending as much as we were in WW2? :o Wow I wonder if that's accurate. I said before that we can cut defense. We outspend just about everyone by a wide margin including China.

Conley
08-13-2011, 08:42 PM
We are spending as much as we were in WW2? :o Wow I wonder if that's accurate. I said before that we can cut defense. We outspend just about everyone by a wide margin including China.


I have no problem believing we are spending the same as WW2 (adjusting for inflation)...the protracted engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, the complete disregard for spending, and now the most upsetting of them all, the action in Libya.

Mister D
08-13-2011, 08:47 PM
We are spending as much as we were in WW2? :o Wow I wonder if that's accurate. I said before that we can cut defense. We outspend just about everyone by a wide margin including China.


I have no problem believing we are spending the same as WW2 (adjusting for inflation)...the protracted engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, the complete disregard for spending, and now the most upsetting of them all, the action in Libya.


I guess it makes more sense to me now in light of the fact that everything is so high tech now. It's still stunning though. Our entire society was geared toward the war in the 1940s. It was total war. The wars in the Mid East hardly impact us.

Mister D
08-13-2011, 08:47 PM
Individual Americans that is.

Conley
08-13-2011, 08:53 PM
We are spending as much as we were in WW2? :o Wow I wonder if that's accurate. I said before that we can cut defense. We outspend just about everyone by a wide margin including China.


I have no problem believing we are spending the same as WW2 (adjusting for inflation)...the protracted engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, the complete disregard for spending, and now the most upsetting of them all, the action in Libya.


I guess it makes more sense to me now in light of the fact that everything is so high tech now. It's still stunning though. Our entire society was geared toward the war in the 1940s. It was total war. The wars in the Mid East hardly impact us.


That's true, but political careers were built and lost based on 9/11. The degree of response is not always equivalent to the actual level of threat. I think this is what happens when our politicians fail us. Now apparently the President has the ability to start a war on a sovereign nation without the support of Congress. Not only has the anti-war movement vanished since Obama took office, but he apparently gets a pass from the American people for this. We're screwed.

Conley
08-13-2011, 09:24 PM
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/07/img/defense_budgets1.jpg

Mister D
08-14-2011, 04:38 PM
We are spending as much as we were in WW2? :o Wow I wonder if that's accurate. I said before that we can cut defense. We outspend just about everyone by a wide margin including China.


I have no problem believing we are spending the same as WW2 (adjusting for inflation)...the protracted engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, the complete disregard for spending, and now the most upsetting of them all, the action in Libya.


I guess it makes more sense to me now in light of the fact that everything is so high tech now. It's still stunning though. Our entire society was geared toward the war in the 1940s. It was total war. The wars in the Mid East hardly impact us.


That's true, but political careers were built and lost based on 9/11. The degree of response is not always equivalent to the actual level of threat. I think this is what happens when our politicians fail us. Now apparently the President has the ability to start a war on a sovereign nation without the support of Congress. Not only has the anti-war movement vanished since Obama took office, but he apparently gets a pass from the American people for this. We're screwed.


I've hard that said for a couple years now. Where is that anti-war movement? Some people are still active but it just goes to show you just how partisan it all was.

Mister D
08-14-2011, 04:40 PM
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/07/img/defense_budgets1.jpg


Thanks. Interesting chart. Gives us some perspective.

MMC
08-15-2011, 11:53 AM
Wonder what that chart looks like if one throws in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya, where we are actually dropping bombs on all 4 countries without being at War with them.

Mister D
08-15-2011, 12:03 PM
Wonder what that chart looks like if one throws in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya, where we are actually dropping bombs on all 4 countries without being at War with them.


I think it already accounts for them. The wars listed on the bottom are just to give a timeline.

MMC
08-15-2011, 12:06 PM
Wonder what that chart looks like if one throws in Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya, where we are actually dropping bombs on all 4 countries without being at War with them.


I think it already accounts for them. The wars listed on the bottom are just to give a timeline.


Well Sept 1st we hit 1.1 billion for libya alone. Plus I do not thinkng it is counting all those bombs in those countries as we are not at war with them.

Conley
08-15-2011, 04:43 PM
Libya hasn't even been going on that long and it's already at one billion +.

Some days the news is just depressing. :-\

Mister D
08-15-2011, 06:31 PM
I have no idea what if anything the chart is missing,

MMC
08-15-2011, 11:15 PM
Wonder if there is a Chart for What Congress has cut concerning Defense?