Interesting Graph - Shrinking US Naval Power

[Orionblamblam]

Please tell me how we will bankrupt ourselves spending a smaller percentage of GDP on defense that at any time during the Cold War?

See, here's the thing:

If that 20% Defence wedge goes up even a little, the republic is doomed. If the three wedges on the right *don't* go up a whole lot, the republic is doomed.

For The Children.

 

[JFC Fuller]

Clearly you have little experience of a man who is upset. The numbers are without context and therefore without use.

In a democracy it is the responsibility of the electorate, through their elected representatives, to determine how their tax money is spent. Currently the US electorate is choosing not to embrace your expansionist defence budget to fund an excessively large fleet.

As for how the US will bankrupt itself, I would advise you check out the GAO projections of US debt, then consider how long you thing the USN will be able to continue its current level of global naval supremacy without massive funding increases (again, check the GAO USN budget projections) in a world in which China is sustaining double digit GDP growth (expected to overtake the US as early as 2030 now) and India is following close behind and both are investing heavily in their fleets.

The reality is simple, ultimately the USN will have to surrender its long enjoyed global hegemony and accept a position of equality, at best, at the top table of three. Alternatively the US can choose to spend an ever larger proportion of its GDP on defence for little appreciable gain than the humour of its supposed enemies. What the US spends on defence now is scarcely relevant to what it will have to spend in 2030 and beyond. When one realises the crisis in USN shipbuilding already occurring the the future becomes even more stark.

 

[bobbymike]

Defense spending as a percentage of federal outlays since 1950. Apparently we used to spend more on defense compared to the entire budget than we do today. But defense is obviously the problem.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/27/U.S._Defense_Spending_-_%25_tutlays.png/800px-U.S._Defense_Spending_-_%25_tutlays.png

 

[bobbymike]

Clearly you have little experience of a man who is upset. The numbers are without context and therefore without use.

In a democracy it is the responsibility of the electorate, through their elected representatives, to determine how their tax money is spent. Currently the US electorate is choosing not to embrace your expansionist defence budget to fund an excessively large fleet.

As for how the US will bankrupt itself, I would advise you check out the GAO projections of US debt, then consider how long you thing the USN will be able to continue its current level of global naval supremacy without massive funding increases (again, check the GAO USN budget projections) in a world in which China is sustaining double digit GDP growth (expected to overtake the US as early as 2030 now) and India is following close behind and both are investing heavily in their fleets.

The reality is simple, ultimately the USN will have to surrender its long enjoyed global hegemony and accept a position of equality, at best, at the top table of three. Alternatively the US can choose to spend an ever larger proportion of its GDP on defence for little appreciable gain than the humour of its supposed enemies. What the US spends on defence now is scarcely relevant to what it will have to spend in 2030 and beyond. When one realises the crisis in USN shipbuilding already occurring the the future becomes even more stark.

You have just changed your entire premise from your first "bankrupting itself" post. In your first post YOU are guilty of making a claim without context and therefore your "bankrupting statement" is without use (just using your rationale)

Context - The US could easily double or triple or quadruple the ship building budget than pee away a wasteful trillion dollar non-stimulus. Any loss of US global leadership (much better than your loaded "hegemony") is because of a bloated "rest of the budget" and nothing to do with whether the US can actually "afford" to build more ships.

The current federal budget is like a guy complaining he can't afford food because of those silly crack and gambling expenditures.

 

[JFC Fuller]

Defense spending as a percentage of federal outlays since 1950. Apparently we used to spend more on defense compared to the entire budget than we do today. But defense is obviously the problem.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/27/U.S._Defense_Spending_-_%25_tutlays.png/800px-U.S._Defense_Spending_-_%25_tutlays.png

Another case of a poor chart, that merely states defence spending as a percentage of total government expenditure but as it does not provide the percentage of GDP being spent by the government it is utterly useless.

The proportion of GDP spent by the state has exploded thus reducing the percentage of the total budget spent on defence even if the fall in defence expenditure as a proportion of GDP has not seen such dramatic falls.

http://www.afji.com/2007/03/2545232/

Note that even during the Reagan buildup US defence spending only reached 6.2% of GDP, in FY10 it is 4.7%. That is equivalent of the Cold War low reached in 1979 also of 4.7%.

 

[Anderman]

The proportion of GDP is not a good number, because the GDP today is in real terms larger the then the GDP of 1979.
So that the USA spend more on "defense" today compared to 1979.

 

[bobbymike]

The proportion of GDP is not a good number, because the GDP today is in real terms larger the then the GDP of 1979.
So that the USA spend more on "defense" today compared to 1979.

The right measure is as a percentage of GDP because that reflects the nations wealth and reflects affordability. It is no different than if someone spends $50,000 on a car when he makes $50,000/year being describes as careless as compared to someone who spends $100,000 on a car but earns $200,000/year.

Defense spending as a percentage of federal outlays since 1950. Apparently we used to spend more on defense compared to the entire budget than we do today. But defense is obviously the problem.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/27/U.S._Defense_Spending_-_%25_tutlays.png/800px-U.S._Defense_Spending_-_%25_tutlays.png

Another case of a poor chart, that merely states defence spending as a percentage of total government expenditure but as it does not provide the percentage of GDP being spent by the government it is utterly useless.

The proportion of GDP spent by the state has exploded thus reducing the percentage of the total budget spent on defence even if the fall in defence expenditure as a proportion of GDP has not seen such dramatic falls.

http://www.afji.com/2007/03/2545232/

Note that even during the Reagan buildup US defence spending only reached 6.2% of GDP, in FY10 it is 4.7%. That is equivalent of the Cold War low reached in 1979 also of 4.7%.

The 4.7% figure includes Iraq and A-stan so your comparison to Reagan is misleading. A better comparison would be Vietnam and spending was over 10% of GDP over twice the level of today. The baseline budget is $535 billion out of a $14.4 trillion economy or 3.7%.

But again the point is that defense is NOT bankrupting the nation entitlement spending is especially with the latest CBO estimate of a current unfunded liability of over $100 TRILLION for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

Orion, your claiming the republic is doomed unless we spend vastly more on medicare, and social security? :-\
Maybe it's just me but I would put national defense before entitlements that I doubt I will get to benefit from myself.

Recently I ran into a bunch of people who think we can "cash in" on our military, gut it, and all live like kings. Where did such an idiotic notion come from?

 

[Orionblamblam]

Orion, your claiming the republic is doomed unless we spend vastly more on medicare, and social security? :-\

What, don't you believe that? If not, then you are probably a Right Wing Teabagger Racist Neanderthal.

Clearly the only thing that has kept the republic from falling into ruin over the last few decades has been the glorious succes of the Peoples New Deal and the Peoples Great Society. The only reason why we're not living in a perfect utopia right now is because we haven't spent *enough* on those programs (we're currently spending about 50% of GNP on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security... clearly we should be spending three of four times that percetage on those programs). But one day soon the evil right wingers and their ignorant worship of the "Constitution" will be swept aside, all the ill-gotten gains of the Rich Piggies will be appropriated, and we'll all live in a Workers Paradise! Sure, everyone will be unemployed, but it'll be ok because the government will pay for everything.

We won't need a Navy at that point, because we won't have any overseas interests, and nobody would want to come here anyway.

 

[Triton]

Is it possible that the future ballistic missile submarine will be a joint US and UK program? A possible combination of the Royal Navy's Maritime Underwater Future Capability (MUFC) and the United States Navy's SSBN(X) programs? Will the United States want a new SLBM? Or would we refurbish the UGM-133 Trident II (Trident D5), which seems the preference of the UK at this time?

I understand that 19% of the United States population will be over 65 by the year 2030, compared with 12.9% of the United States population in 2009. I think it is a given that we will be spending more on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in the future as a percentage of GNP/GDP.

 

[bobbymike]

Triton - There is some "commonality" work happening now but all I have read about is a program on the future launch tube that may be up to 120" in diameter.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/oops-american-missile-to-replace-trident-is-too-big-for-britain-s-nuclear-submarines-1.828239

Interestingly there seems to be a lot of joint work between the US and UK at the UK's nuclear weapons lab. I speculated that since congress forbid all work on "advanced weapons concepts" that American scientists are finding their way around the law in Britain.

 

[JFC Fuller]

Actually proportion of GDP is the standardised format for contextualising government expenditure as it expresses total impact on the economy. I apologise if that irritates you but that is actually how it works.It goes without saying that the larger the economy the more money a fixed percentage will provide but the proportion of GDP will still show how much of total economic output is being absorbed by the defence, or health, or pensions, etc.

The Vietnam level is a good example, at over 10% it took a toll Johnsons social programmes and forced persistent inflation as it was largely funded through deficit spending. The Reagan era buildup helped push total government debt up from 32.5% of GDP to 53.1% of GDP.

However, as for what is bankrupting America, it is not any particular area of government expenditure, it is simply government expenditure. Whether it i brought under control by the bond markets or by sensible government ultimately massive cuts will be made and America's particular form of democracy will determine where they fall. Likely it will be across the board but time will tell. It is unlikely that the electorate will be willing to see much of its cherished social programme cut though. And all this against a backdrop of massive economic growth in India and China, both countries with greater economic potential than the US, the reality is that US hegemony is time limited.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Politics, it will be the death of me. Topic locked.