Yeah, I can't believe that we're spending 2:1 on entitlements vs. defense. Imagine if we took even 1% of all the money we're flushing away on healthcare, food stamps, supporting higher rents, etc (all of which go to people that don't pay any taxes anyway) and gave it to NASA!

Define the word entitlement as you use it Mark. What's your implication? After paying in to my Social Security account since I was sixteen years old, thousands and thousands of dollars year after year am I NOT entitled to my SS payouts? After paying thousands and thousands in payroll taxes reading your right wing bull@!$%# is disgusting. I have paid taxes my entire life and god damned right I am entitled to these programs. Frankly, it should be a 4 to 1 ratio.

@Bluelake: Pie slices 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 & 8 to start with.
http://raymondpronk.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/800px-fy2010_spending_by_category.jpg&sa=X&ei=SPiFToH1CcXL0QHdxZX-Dw&ved=0CAoQ8wc&usg=AFQjCNFZxvtkjXP1sPGOUE0N-oH31-UnZw

Oh no, you're entitled to your SS payouts for what you've put in. The trouble is that for most people, that ends after 5-8 years and the average American lives another 10 or so years past that. Which means that if you retire at 67 (like I am supposed to), by about 75 or so you start reaping free money.

Thanks! That means I'm doing my job giving you something to think about. But "right wing bull@!$%#" is just a bull@!$%# term... the defense budget (which creates jobs) has been been shrinking as a percentage of spending for decades. Consider the percentage of GDP spent on defense in 1952, 1972, 1992, and 2012.

Are you sure you're paying taxes? The only reason why I ask is that half the country doesn't pay a cent and the next 25% barely pay at all. (Dirty secret: If you're at ~100k with 2 kids and a house, you don't pay income tax either!)

Frankly, it should be at most a 1:1 ratio. Tax money should be used to run the government (defense, infrastructure, exploration, etc) and not as a means to redistribute wealth.

I'm not going to argue with you on this thread. You spout the same old conservative garbage and wont be swayed, so why bother. One thing I do know is that I make about 3% of what Romney makes and I pay a higher tax rate. Of course I don't hide my money in Switzerland or the Caymans or Bermuda to dodge taxes. And remember what Mark Twain said: "there are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics." You're good at all three.

I don't know if I'd pull the money from the poor. I think we have a much wider target within the defense budget. There's SO much waste within this budget its just insane. Think about this... Our budget for air conditioning ALONE in Iraq and Afghanistan is larger than NASA's entire annual budget. I think my example of our ongoing building of aircraft carriers is also a good example...

Let me explain further...

I was an avionics technician for an F-14 squadron in the US Navy from 81-85. I was stationed aboard the USS Ranger (Forrestal class of carrier) and the USS Kitty Hawk (Kitty Hawk class of carrier). These were super carriers that relied upon oil-fired boilers for their propulsion. THESE carriers, which are all retired and sitting in dry dock, remain more powerful and more capable than 80-90% of the rest of the world's current aircraft carriers. You can google map Bremerton, WA and see three or four of these carriers just sitting in dry dock waiting for their final disposition.

Which brings us to our nuclear carriers. The most powerful warships in the world. One of our nuclear carriers are capable of taking out 2 or 3 of the world's carriers combined (want a laugh? Look at the Italian or Brazilian carriers). We currently have 4 decommissioned Forestal Class carriers, 2 decommissioned Kitty Hawk Class carriers, 1 decommissioned Kennedy Class carrier, 1 active Enterprise Class carrier, 10 active Nimitz Class carriers, and we're currently building 3 Ford Class carriers.

All in all, if we brought back all the decommissioned carriers, all the active carriers, and all the carriers we're currently building, the United States has 15 usable carriers that will go up to 18 usable carriers by 2025.

...To counter What Enemy? Who is it we're protecting our country from with all this Naval Air Power? Each of our Carriers hold 90-100 aircraft. Most of the carriers from around the world are light and smaller carriers that hold only 30-40 aircraft (50 max). Our Nimitz class carriers are 100,000 Ton warships. The other nations? France, UK, Italy, Brazil? 10,000 to 30,000 Ton carriers (a tenth to a third the size of our Nimitz class carrier).

Currently France, China, the UK, and India are currently building newer carriers, but even these carriers are only 50,000 - 75,000 Ton warships.

An additional mention should be made of our Amphibious Assault ships as well. These ships appear to be mini-aircraft carriers (38-40,000 Ton warship), and support Harrier attack aircraft as well as a variety of attack & support helicopters for a Marine expeditionary force. These "light aircraft" carriers would also pose a significant threat to the Naval aviation wing of a foreign country.

So wow... We really have a lot of Naval and Marine airpower that we can project from our country. Enough power to effectively swamp the rest of the world's entire arsenal of aircraft carriers and naval aviation...

Yet...

We have 3 more aircraft carriers we're building for about $14 Billion apiece ($42 Billion dollars between now and 2025). When is enough, enough?

We have twice the world's capability? Maybe even 3 times the capacity for Naval Aviation warfare of the rest of the entire planet? Do we need 4 times the power? 5 times the power? When is enough, enough?

I bring all this up because we often have people on these boards who say, "Oh... But think of all the starving children with cancer the money spent on the Mars Curiosity Rover would save". I do think of that. I also know that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year taking care of the sick and the poor, and I just don't think scavenging from NASA's paltry budget will fix anything. NASA delivers science, and provides innovations that our country can profit from. If anything, they should be given more money to continue to push the envelope of our species outward.

The Defense budget, on the other hand...? Yeah, that can be easily cut, cut again, and cut even more... It's completely out of control how much money we're throwing down that drain.

@Bluelake: Okay, so... you might pay a higher tax rate, but you pay far less in actual dollars. Why do you think that people that make more than you need to pay a bigger rate as well as more money? So it's "fair"?
Suppose Romney made $10 million and paid 15%. He just contributed $1,500,000 to the federal coffers. Meanwhile, suppose you made $100,000 and paid 20%. You just gave $20,000. Now Romney paid 75 TIMES as much as you did in taxes, but that's somehow unfair? Is your sweat somehow more precious than his? (LOL!) Is he a second class citizen that he should pay more than you?

And, do you want to tax John Kerry at x3 what you want to tax Romney at, since he's at least that much wealthier than Romney?

Thanks. I've had to work hard given all the tripe that's spouted here, especially for those that can't understand actual data. Now, if you're done taking petty potshots... see ya around, o noble class warrior!

@Anjinsan: (Nice name btw, I just re-watched Shogun recently!) You raise some good points.

1. While we spend more on defense, it's less than half of what we used to during the Ike years. Entitlement spending, however, has mushroomed to be over half of the budget... and is still growing.
2. There is waste in any governmental program. However, defense jobs are some of the few that can't be so easily outsourced.
3. True on the AC in the deserts. We also spend more on propping up artificially high rental rates than on NASA. It's criminal.
4. They're starting to do away with the old carriers. The Forrestal, Saratoga, & Constellation will all be scrapped in Brownsville, Texas in the next couple of years.
5. As you probably know, the Fords will replace the Enterprise and begin the decommisioning of the Nimitz class.
6. The application of overwhelming force is what keeps other nations from stirring up local conflicts. The US has no interest in repeating the Suez Canal incident (where Britain & France decided to "go it alone"). Given the tenuous nature of geopolitics (piracy, Iran, North Korea) the benefit of the carriers far outweighs their costs. Someday, the US may stop being the world's policeman. I do not look forward to having another world like the one we had in 1913 or 1933.

Hey Mark,

You've made some very succinct points, to which I'd like to add:

#1 - It's nice to know that we're spending less than what we did during the height of the Eisenhower presidency; however, the Iron Curtain had just descended over eastern Europe. The Cold War was peaking through the 50's and 60's, and our ENTIRE economy from the 1940's was still coming down from the war economy of World War II.

Today? We're still outspending the rest of the world on Defense, and our defense budget makes up over 40% of the entire planet's expenditure on weapons. Seems rather silly that the freest country in the world is the most heavily armed country on the planet.

#2 - When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, nearly overnight our automobile factories began manufacturing jeeps and tanks. Our shipyards went from cruise ships, merchant ships to vessels of war. I think the initial retooling of factories may pose problems, however, I don't believe it's an insurmountable obstacle.

Let's face it. Building Tanks, War planes, and Navy ships does keep people working; however, 50% of our nation's bridge's are at the end of their lifespan, our roads are deteriorated, we have a single high-speed rail service from Boston to Washington D.C., and our Air Traffic control system is outdated. We have levees that are not equipped to handle with this century's predicted rise of sea levels. We have changing water requirements, which will require massive waterwork projects to stave off the increase in droughts that we will see.

There's no end to work that needs to be done in our country to make it a better place to live. Tanks, guns, war planes, and war ships do not increase our standard of living, or adds to our country's ability to care for itself.

#4 - Yes. They are doing away with all the oil-burning carriers. But we still have them. Google Bremerton, WA. You can see the oil burners side-by-side at the piers there. Let's look at it this way...

The S### just hit the fan. We're surrounded by enemies, and we need more naval air power. What's the quickest way to put more naval flightdecks to sea? Retrofit, renovate, and restore the oil-burners and they can be back on station within 12 months or less.

#5 - The Fords will replace the Nimitz class carrier. They are a marvel of modern technology. More powerful reactors, MagLev catapults, better weapons management, etc... But... The Nimitz Class carrier STILL does not have a companion carrier that can match it from any other country on this planet. Nothing can beat a Nimitz, right now: Better than the Kutnetzov class of carrier from Russia; better than the Principe De Asturias class of carrier from Spain; better than the Illustrious class from the U.K.; better than the Charles de Gaulle class of carrier from France. Truth be told... We're building a better carrier because we simply want something better than what we currently have, not because we're building a system to counter a current or predicted threat.

#6. The application of overwhelming force that we have is what's keeping other countries in line? Is that right? That's quite the bully mentality, don't you think? What do we care what other countries do? If we didn't spend money on new carriers we could have invested that money elsewhere. For the money we've invested in military spending over the past 20-30 years, we could have completely replaced this country's reliance upon foreign oil. We could have had a permanent base on the Moon, and the first human missions to Mars. We could have invested that money in our infrastructure. We could have changed the world's opinion of the United States. Our country would be a better place WITHOUT the huge costs of maintaining the planet's most bloated military ever known to mankind.

Mark the "Reb" is back on the attack from his rant on the school vouchers argument

Confederacy = single states

Union = United States

@Anjinsan:

1. Well yes, of course. On the other hand since we now live in a uni-polar world we are the Pax Americana. (Disclaimer: I lived in the CSSR in the 1980s and also visited Poland under martial law as well as East Germany just after the wall came down.)
IMO, the world is indeed less dangerous from the point of view that we no longer have two political viewpoints fighting for supremacy but MORE dangerous because we're still cleaning up the mess from the Cold War.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel/Palestine and basically Africa are all unfinished business. As we've seen from every other prior war, the unfinished business becomes the next war. That we haven't had WW3 yet is to my mind amazing.
I disagree: history teaches us that the unarmed are always the slaves and the armed are always the masters.

2. Yes, and of course at the time Japan was one of the "big 5" and we faced an imminent threat -- but we also had already ramped up war production since 1938. However, we must also consider that the technological gap has changed radically. Fighter planes used to last at best 5 years, now they last 40. Most of the heavy forges have been scrapped, as have the shipyards etc. I don't know about you, but I rather prefer the *very low* combat deaths the US has enjoyed with it's interventions since... Grenada.
Oh, I agree... there are many, many things the US needs to do, but building those things *do* increase our standard of living as they produce (skilled) domestic jobs. (This is why I can't believe that unions back Democrats and then are surprised when defense contractors have to lay off their workers!) No matter how one slices it, building an aircraft carrier is a FAR better use of money than food stamps. That's not to say there is no need for food stamps, but that it is a dole.

Likewise, the carriers do allow us to perform humanitarian missions that are unthinkable to any other nation on Earth -- the USS Lincoln in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami, the USS Ronald Reagan at the Philippines tsunami & at later at Fukushima, and the USS Carl Vinson off of Haiti all saved thousands of lives. My main point is that I WOULD like to see increased NASA funding and increased infrastructure spending. I just want the entitlement spending to be cut *at the same ratio* as the defense budget to fund it!

4. Yeah, the mothball fleet is always an option... but you also can't keep it around forever. That's why we didn't take our WW1 era ships back from the UK after WW2. Sure, we could fly F-14s today as well but it's more expensive than it's worth.

5. Exactly. And the Fords are cheaper to run as they require a smaller crew as well. Our NATO allies' carriers aren't of course anything near ours. Russia doesn't need much in the way of carriers. China is the only real possible competitor out there if you want to think in terms of a WW2-type nation-on-nation fight and that's never going to happen because of the economics. But the point of having massive naval power is to maintain the peace, and (let's face it) the Nimitz is 40 years old and has an expected life of 50. It's just that time.

6. Yes, it is, I fully admit it. Because that's what international diplomacy is. I agree, there are lots of things we could have done... but talking about doing it by cutting the defense budget alone is foolish.

I'm all for US energy independence and sensible spending. Also, we *have* severely cut out reliance on foreign oil. The US imports very little oil from outside North America.
The problems are that:
a) We have stopped ourselves from drilling in a LOT of areas and this Administration has been VERY bad about licensing new drilling platforms and power plants. The War on Coal has likewise driven up prices and impacted economic growth. And don't get me started on Nuclear, which no President has had the balls to really cozy up to.
b) The world market is much tighter and therefore a shock elsewhere drives up the price.
c) The speculation in commodity (energy) markets needs to be more regulated, but the Dodd-Frank Act will actually make things WORSE.
d) It will take a few years to spin up fraking. Once we do, we need to start converting as many oil-fired power stations and diesel tractor-trailers over to natural gas, plus start on low mpg vehicles like SUVs and pickup trucks. THAT would really help.

Thank you, I am really enjoying this conversation!

Can we use footage of O.J. Simpson, Sam Waterston & Elliot Gould? ;-)

Er... is this addressed at me, and if so... why?