$1.7 trillion is the world's annual military budget with America spending a third of that and China is the next runner-up in spending but it only manages a third of what America spends and Russia isn't even close. Even the Saudis spend more than Russia. (RT: World military spending grows to $1.7tn in 2015 - Swedish think tank)
Even if America were not aggressive, it would be appear to be so simply from needing a place to put all the weapons it buys.
America is the same country with the GOP bellyaching endlessly about the budget and yet there's over six hundred billion dollars going up in smoke every year. That doesn't even count the black box military budget which never gets publicized.
Note: good luck on discovering what's budgeted for CIA, NSA, etc. That sort of thing is 'off the books' for mortals such as we.
The objective isn't to play high school car clubs with my Chevy is faster than your Ford as the perennial ping pong is blaming one team or the other for the budget problems but never splitting it down the middle to discover what makes sense.
There's little chance of it ever making sense while the military and related contractors are the sources of so many jobs in America. (Christian Science Monitor: America’s biggest jobs program: The US military)
That's where the truth of it comes and the article details how the Fed has tried to cut unused or superfluous programs but Congress overrides that with pork barrel spending to assure jobs in his or her state, regardless of the true military necessity for them.
The same topic came up in a specific sense recently regarding Bernie Sanders approving Lockheed Martin in his home state of Vermont. These allegiances are not much different from metastasis in terms of what they have done to the country. The jobs have become the most cynical kind of welfare insofar as they pretend they are something else but it's not true. The states can't abandon them or their economies collapse.
Emphasis: we are not abandoning the need for welfare reforms, health care reform, etc, etc but those need to happen in concert with bringing reason to military spending or the result will only be the military spending gets even worse.
The next time you want to flog Bernie Sanders and his budget ideas, you might wish to review one more time just why the hell the U.S. is spending so much on the military, three times more than the closest big spender. Hillary Clinton has given no indication of any positive change and it's not anticipated as she has been as war hawk as they ever come out of Washington.
Trump and Cruz remain ludicrous fails so the GOP's move isn't clear. Paul Ryan is begging for the nomination but he's so tedious when he grovels. And Kasich ... pfft. They have no act.
Lately I haven't been seeing all that much from the GOP crowd as they know the candidates suck. They see substantial Democrat contempt for Clinton but all their thinking has been toward combat with her in the last round. We still don't think they can make a strong case for that and hopefully today's result in Wisconsin further confirms the point.
It would be an unusual thing to behold as they really hate Clinton, right down to her filthy rich toenails. They're afraid of Bernie Sanders, tho. He's crazy, he's a lunatic, he will destroy us all, blah de blah de blah.
Lately, tho, they haven't even been badmouthing Obama much so it looks like kind of a Trump-o-mortis has come over them. Most unusual phenomenon.
Even if America were not aggressive, it would be appear to be so simply from needing a place to put all the weapons it buys.
America is the same country with the GOP bellyaching endlessly about the budget and yet there's over six hundred billion dollars going up in smoke every year. That doesn't even count the black box military budget which never gets publicized.
Note: good luck on discovering what's budgeted for CIA, NSA, etc. That sort of thing is 'off the books' for mortals such as we.
The objective isn't to play high school car clubs with my Chevy is faster than your Ford as the perennial ping pong is blaming one team or the other for the budget problems but never splitting it down the middle to discover what makes sense.
There's little chance of it ever making sense while the military and related contractors are the sources of so many jobs in America. (Christian Science Monitor: America’s biggest jobs program: The US military)
That's where the truth of it comes and the article details how the Fed has tried to cut unused or superfluous programs but Congress overrides that with pork barrel spending to assure jobs in his or her state, regardless of the true military necessity for them.
The same topic came up in a specific sense recently regarding Bernie Sanders approving Lockheed Martin in his home state of Vermont. These allegiances are not much different from metastasis in terms of what they have done to the country. The jobs have become the most cynical kind of welfare insofar as they pretend they are something else but it's not true. The states can't abandon them or their economies collapse.
Emphasis: we are not abandoning the need for welfare reforms, health care reform, etc, etc but those need to happen in concert with bringing reason to military spending or the result will only be the military spending gets even worse.
The next time you want to flog Bernie Sanders and his budget ideas, you might wish to review one more time just why the hell the U.S. is spending so much on the military, three times more than the closest big spender. Hillary Clinton has given no indication of any positive change and it's not anticipated as she has been as war hawk as they ever come out of Washington.
Trump and Cruz remain ludicrous fails so the GOP's move isn't clear. Paul Ryan is begging for the nomination but he's so tedious when he grovels. And Kasich ... pfft. They have no act.
Lately I haven't been seeing all that much from the GOP crowd as they know the candidates suck. They see substantial Democrat contempt for Clinton but all their thinking has been toward combat with her in the last round. We still don't think they can make a strong case for that and hopefully today's result in Wisconsin further confirms the point.
It would be an unusual thing to behold as they really hate Clinton, right down to her filthy rich toenails. They're afraid of Bernie Sanders, tho. He's crazy, he's a lunatic, he will destroy us all, blah de blah de blah.
Lately, tho, they haven't even been badmouthing Obama much so it looks like kind of a Trump-o-mortis has come over them. Most unusual phenomenon.
11 comments:
Saying the Berns spending ok because look much we spend on the military doesnt work.
Cut the military down to even with China they like us and putin hide huge amounts in crazy accounts no worries
You are still over $400b in the red each year. So massive cuts are needed along with moderate tax increases.
But only present workable plans not pie in the sky hopes
Such as taxing off shore corporate money that will never actually come to fruition
That isn't what I said but rather there are multiple problems and the military is one of them, a really big one.
You will need validation for what anyone else hides in their military budgets.
Taxing off-shore money is inevitable. It's just one more form of theft and eventually it will be prosecuted.
You have a slight chance of taxing private offshore accounts. If you could find them.
You have no chance of taxing corporate profits sitting overseas of companies doing business in other nations.
But he still uses all that money in his plan to pay for his changes.
You cant validate money hidden in foreign budgets just as you cant validate CIA etc budgets.
But of course only the US hides the true spending. China will never manipulate thier public numbers
There's a fair discussion required with corporate representatives needed for profits made in other nations because, presumably, those profits have already been taxed by those other nations so a subsequent tax by the Fed is double jeopardy. Fair enough as law isn't sophisticated enough at this time to handle that well.
Finding the high flyer tax cheaters is the biggest problem but the problem to this point is no-one was looking all that hard. These are the ones who are specifically evading U.S. taxes by putting headquarters in other nations. One positive example is Pfizer recently tried that with a merger which would have relocated them to Ireland and out from under U.S. tax pressures.
The simplest way to ensure foreign corporations pay any U.S. tax is to throw them out if they will not. If you're not willing to pay the tax then you can't do business here (shrug). Pfizer's biggest products are Viagra and Lipitor. Without the American market, they might as well be selling candy gumballs.
Obama stopped the merger but was not much heralded for doing it.
You dont need to throw them out. They are leaving in droves to avoid the 3rd highest marginal tax rate in the world. They then pay the tax rate here on only the business done here and leave all the profit overseas
Because it is only a temporary win. As the new rules take away many of the benefits to the style move they were making.
It is not stopping tax inversions just that one
Until they fix the underlying coporate tax problems they will just have to keep plugging leaks
Unclear what tax would be owed except on the business done in any particular country. Cutting any company off from the US market isn't as big a threat as it once was but it still counts. The reverse problem is what I understand frosts corporations most in getting taxed here on profits made in other countries and which were taxed there.
No disagreement some type of substantive fix is necessary rather than endless patches to make tax code look like a cartoon tire from a thirties jalopy Goofy would be driving.
No what frosts them is tax rate is to high to bring home those profits. The reason Ireland is so atrractive is the marginal rate is around 12%. A difference of over 20%. Most CEOs believe that at about 20% rate in the US would stop the Tax Inversion boom and allow them to bring thier profits back.
Sanders says GE pays no taxes.
Last year I believe they paid Globally about $4B but only $1B in the US because they left the rest overseas
Easiest fix is yours
Eliminate corporate tax. Make a sales tax on purchases. Tax Coke on the sugar they buy and be done with it.
Tax me on the items I buy and be done with it.
I've suggested elimination of corporate tax previously but I don't know the mechanisms well enough to know if that would really work.
Must dash.
Single tax. Big period
I pay sales tax income property tax excise tax hotel tax resort tax food tax alcohol tax facility tax wheel tax luxury tax gas tax etc etc etc
Some receipts list 4 different taxes for that purchase
No chance I can endorse the existing tax code as they have made a mountain of minutiae to make it so complex no-one understands it anymore. You know it's Babel and so do they so they don't dare change anything or the whole thing collapses.
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