Not saying there aren't others, but when, in peacetime, 42% of our budget goes to the military, it's the #1 area to look for cuts. Finally, it's being discussed. Eisenhower warned of it and it's been ignored since. This should be bi-partisan. We'll see who starts the criticism of this. I have my thoughts.


Why We Must Reduce Military Spending


As members of opposing political parties, we disagree on a number of important issues. But we must not allow honest disagreement over some issues interfere with our ability to work together when we do agree.

By far the single most important of these is our current initiative to include substantial reductions in the projected level of American military spending as part of future deficit reduction efforts. For decades, the subject of military expenditures has been glaringly absent from public debate. Yet the Pentagon budget for 2010 is $693 billion -- more than all other discretionary spending programs combined. Even subtracting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military spending still amounts to over 42% of total spending.

It is irrefutably clear to us that if we do not make substantial cuts in the projected levels of Pentagon spending, we will do substantial damage to our economy and dramatically reduce our quality of life.

We are not talking about cutting the money needed to supply American troops in the field. Once we send our men and women into battle, even in cases where we may have opposed going to war, we have an obligation to make sure that our servicemembers have everything they need. And we are not talking about cutting essential funds for combating terrorism; we must do everything possible to prevent any recurrence of the mass murder of Americans that took place on September 11, 2001.

Immediately after World War II, with much of the world devastated and the Soviet Union becoming increasingly aggressive, America took on the responsibility of protecting virtually every country that asked for it. Sixty-five years later, we continue to play that role long after there is any justification for it, and currently American military spending makes up approximately 44% of all such expenditures worldwide. The nations of Western Europe now collectively have greater resources at their command than we do, yet they continue to depend overwhelmingly on American taxpayers to provide for their defense. According to a recent article in the New York Times, "Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism. Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-barney-frank/why-we-must-reduce-milita_b_636051.html

42% of our budget goes to the military



 PURE BULLSHIT. Try 20%

33% to Medicare medicaid

21% Social security

18% non defense  discretionary

8% interest on the national debt

20% Defense

Congressional Budget office figures.2008

So unless Obama raised it , it is BS, and you are still not outraged at HIS WAR, Why did you post this lie.


 OUR PROBLEM,,, Now thats a laugh


SS and Medicare are DEMOCRATS Problems at over 50% of the budget.Along with Trillions of NEW Obama social program and Union boosting dollars

there's alot of profit in war and the ones making the most are the ones who have never ever served
 
besides, there's plenty young people who need excitement

Yes assserios,,, do away with Military spending and convert to Islam. We know where you stand.

Are Frank, Paul and Obama lucid enough - and the Huffington Post reporting on it all - to realize this is not peacetime.
 
That "peacetime" budgetting is a thing of the distant past, in fact.
 
That Obama has only ratcheted up the needed and necessary federal cost of it all - OUR war. Not any other nations'. Not Santa Claus's to budget for, either.
 
42 percent in peacetime? Come on boys.
 
So we just wish it all away so that bankrupting dem fools like Frank and Paul can get their hands on MORE of the federally budgetting pie. To blow away on fat and pork and jobs bills (hah) and stimulating their "friends"? Yeah, right.
 
At a time when the dems refuse to even address the actual budget - too busy spending all of our monies as fast as they can while some of them are still in office to actually ACCOUNT for a federal budget right now. Frank and Paul, included. Post Obama's war we will incur ONLY more and more costs in regard to ongoing care for our honored veterans. Not less. And the costs of beefing up our borders - which our military must incur will only balloon upwards. Not be lessened - anytime soon. Not as long as very real threats to our nation exist. As President Obama only affirms.

PEACETIME? - my rearend. Lying dems.

Medicare, SS and related "welfare" come from FICA, not from income tax.
The rich and wages over $110,000 a year don't pay FICA.....

Until last year FICA covered those things and the surplus FICA went into the general fund.  SS gets bonds in return..
Last year they had to cash some bonds...

Make every body not paying into FICA pay and we will be running a surplus..

If we reduce federal spending - duh, dems - we might have more money and actually be able to FULLY dedicate all of the money needed and necessary for our war to our military and our ongoing war.
 
"Peace-time" deflections from Frank and Paul and the Huffington Post disgust me.
 
We ain't gonna see a peacetime budget until Obama and Frank and Paul are long gone. And they know so.
 
And these dems continue on spending, spending, spending DURING A WAR - and dare to do so without a budget being passed. And determine it best for them to go home on vacation right now, too.
 
Party on, dems. While you can - before you are each replaced back there in D.C. And while our very real global war wages on and patriotic men and women die for Commander in Chief Obama today - the costs of all of that ballooning outward - and Frank and Paul would rather just wish it away. On behalf of Barack Obama?
 
Wow, Huffington Post - if I were you - trying your hardest to act like an ethical and credible news agency, I would have passed on that flat out lie of U.S. Reps. Frank and Paul. Really.

Make every body not paying into FICA pay and we will be running a surplus..






Maybe in la la world !!!!  Her are the facts;

Income tax, goes to pay the interest on the Nat Debt.

In just six months, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect. They will hit families and small businesses in three great waves on January 1, 2011:

First Wave:

Expiration of 2001 and 2003 Tax Relief

In 2001 and 2003, the GOP Congress enacted several tax cuts for investors, small business owners, and families. These will all expire on January 1, 2011:

Personal income tax rates will rise. The top income tax rate will rise from 35 to 39.6 percent (this is also the rate at which two-thirds of small business profits are taxed). The lowest rate will rise from 10 to 15 percent. All the rates in between will also rise. Itemized deductions and personal exemptions will again phase out, which has the same mathematical effect as higher marginal tax rates.

The full list of marginal rate hikes is below:

- The 10% bracket rises to an expanded 15% - The 25% bracket rises to 28% - The 28% bracket rises to 31% - The 33% bracket rises to 36% - The 35% bracket rises to 39.6%

Higher taxes on marriage and family.

The “marriage penalty” (narrower tax brackets for married couples) will return from the first dollar of income. The child tax credit will be cut in half from $1000 to $500 per child. The standard deduction will no longer be doubled for married couples relative to the single level. The dependent care and adoption tax credits will be cut.

The return of the Death Tax. This year, there is no death tax. For those dying on or after January 1 2011, there is a 55 percent top death tax rate on estates over $1 million. A person leaving behind two homes and a retirement account could easily pass along a death tax bill to their loved ones.

Higher tax rates on savers and investors. The capital gains tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 20 percent in 2011. The dividends tax will rise from 15 percent this year to 39.6 percent in 2011. These rates will rise another 3.8 percent in 2013.

[/B]
Second Wave: Obamacare


There are over twenty new or higher taxes in Obamacare. Several will first go into effect on January 1, 2011.

They include:
The “Medicine Cabinet Tax” Thanks to Obamacare, Americans will no longer be able to use health savings account (HSA), flexible spending account (FSA), or health reimbursement (HRA) pre-tax dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin).

The “Special Needs Kids Tax” This provision of Obamacare imposes a cap on flexible spending accounts (FSAs) of $2500 (Currently, there is no federal government limit). There is one group of FSA owners for whom this new cap will be particularly cruel and onerous: parents of special needs children. There are thousands of families with special needs children in the United States, and many of them use FSAs to pay for special needs education. Tuition rates at one leading school that teaches special needs children in Washington, D.C. (National Child Research Center) can easily exceed $14,000 per year. Under tax rules, FSA dollars can be used to pay for this type of special needs education.

The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. This provision of Obamacare increases the additional tax on non-medical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10 to 20 percent, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10 percent.

Third Wave: The Alternative Minimum Tax and Employer Tax Hikes

....

When Americans prepare to file their tax returns in January of 2011, they’ll be in for a nasty surprise—the AMT won’t be held harmless, and many tax relief provisions will have expired. The major items include:


The AMT will ensnare over 28 million families, up from 4 million last year. According to the left-leaning Tax Policy Center, Congress’ failure to index the AMT will lead to an explosion of AMT taxpaying families—rising from 4 million last year to 28.5 million. These families will have to calculate their tax burdens twice, and pay taxes at the higher level. The AMT was created in 1969 to ensnare a handful of taxpayers.


Small business expensing will be slashed and 50% expensing will disappear. Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly-deduct, or “depreciate”) equipment purchases up to $250,000. This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be “depreciated.”


Taxes will be raised on all types of businesses. There are literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place. The biggest is the loss of the “research and experimentation tax credit,” but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs.


Tax Benefits for Education and Teaching Reduced. The deduction for tuition and fees will not be available. Tax credits for education will be limited. Teachers will no longer be able to deduct classroom expenses. Coverdell Education Savings Accounts will be cut. Employer-provided educational assistance is curtailed. The student loan interest deduction will be disallowed for hundreds of thousands of families.


Charitable Contributions from IRAs no longer allowed. Under current law, a retired person with an IRA can contribute up to $100,000 per year directly to a charity from their IRA. This contribution also counts toward an annual “required minimum distribution.” This ability will no longer be there.
Read more: http://www.atr.org/sixmonths.html?content=5171#ixzz0sub9V6vj

All of it may happen if Republicans continue with Obama fail at any cost, obstructionist policy.
Much of it will not affect me anyway.
The "Paris Hilton Welfare" tax repeal won't hit very many people..one example.
Rolling Bill Gates 15% on dividend income going to 28 or 31% won't put him on welfare
I pay more than that now on my retirement income...

dondc - you deflect to some notion in regard to IF Republicans continue on with Obama policy? Ah, how about let's just set the record straight in regard to today and the past 18 months - and God knows what else Obama will absolutely tank and ruin before he can be run out of office in two more long years - on all of our behalf before we start deflecting to any Republican who is, in actuality not the one taking off for vacation right now -as the dems in power did - refusing to pass a federal budget at all.
Refusing to honor our Active Duty U.S. Military, at the very least, by sticking around long enough to at the very least FULLY FUND the budget increases to cover Commander in Chief Barack Obama's ongoing global war against terrorism.
 
All the while undeserving U.S. Military Active Duty are forced DURING our global war being waged today to log on and read The Huffington Post's lies, lies, lies - that Frank and Paul (on behalf of Barack Obama) are trying to pass as "truth".
 
UNBELIAVABLE. How's any of our reality today shaping up to be - balanced by what Barack Obama the complete liar of a campaigner for U.S. President promised you all it would be - by 2010?
 
Sheez. Lies. Lies. Lies. All of them - dem lies.

An excerpt from one of Thom Hartmann's shows.....


You know, what’s happening is that Americans are figuring out, both on the left and the right, that to a large extent we don’t have America in America anymore. We don’t have the American Dream in America anymore. That, you know, when that great transition happened in the early 1980s where in the inaugural ball of 1976 Jimmy Carter walked the parade route down Pennsylvania Avenue and invited average people to his Presidential ball versus four years later Ronald Reagan did the whole thing with pomp and circumstance and people had to pay an enormous amount of money and everybody was wearing $10-20,000 dollar ball gowns and it was like the royalty was back.



And it was the end of the celebration of the middle class. We had 50 years in the United States where we celebrated the middle class and we built the middle class. And the main thing that we used to build the middle class was a top marginal tax rate on people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who make more than 2 million dollars a year so that they were paying, you know the top tax rate was 74%. They were actually paying 51 ½ %. The average tax paid on somebody making more than 2 million dollars a year in 1980 was 51.6%, more than half.



So as a consequence of this, very wealthy people had an incentive to keep money in their businesses, to grow businesses, to build the infrastructure of America, to have a middle class, to not take enormous amounts of money out of this country and put it in Swiss bank accounts or build factories in China, but build American business. Then Reagan changed all that. And dropped that top tax rate down into the low 30s where it is now. And Clinton kicked it up three or four points for a couple of years and damn near balanced our budget and then Bush dropped it back down again.



We are now at that point that the American middle class is in the midst of it’s own destruction and is turning into the American working poor.

Nothing you said makes much sense to me.
Once agin you are saying "deflect", what do you mean when you say deflect?
You seem to be running far afield in this post, I see that as deflection..
The war in Afghanistan doesn't need or use many of the things the military spends on.  I thought long ago that we could close a lot of bases over seas and save money...We sure don't need billion dollar airplanes to fight the Taliban.

war mongers still deny an illegal war is the root cause of all, every one, of our problems
 
the military industrial complex will destroy this country in its present form
 
already war mongers are no longer hiding

IO, again I have to say "Huh".

We spend billions per year and are taken down by $10 worth of boxcutters.

Do you think something isn't right?

Sounds like Hartmanns a dope who doesn't know our history.  Most likely a product of a liberal education then.  Besides being off topic.

Anyways it's good to hear Dr. Pauls message of closing most of our bases around the world is getting through the the rest of the noise.

.

Oh good lord deflectors/dems - the heat has gotten to all of you east coasters.
 
Really - either waging a global war should be a little more cost effective (and protecting us all within our borders too on a daily basis) or we should just what? Ignore the GLOBAL TERRORIST THREAT TO US THAT IS ONGOING - not just to Afghanistan or Iraq but to each American inside of our borders - and concentrate full out on suing Arizona, instead? Or the fact that dems empowered today like it just fine when they determine it "right"  for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate to recess and go home on vacation after deliberately choosing NOT to pass a budget - as the public is entitled to see and appreciate.

Why that would be admitting that Obama lied to us all when he ratcheted up HIS war and stated to the nation we had on ongoing reason to remain fully engaged in this GLOBAL WAR - because our nation is emperiled by this very real enemy - not just Afghanistan and/or Iraq. All of that needing the full resources of our nation - monetarily and symbolically. Or was President Obama/ Commander in Chief of a Global War against very real Al Qaeda identified terrorism, lying?
 
Sheez - let's just follow the reasoning of heat stroke suffering progressives out there on the east coast - the Huffington Post was only and always just telling us the truth, channeled through all things lucid U.S. Reps Frank and Paul?
 
Sure.....

oregon baby
 
you know that invading iraq was is and always will be known as the stupidest thing this country  has ever done
 
and trying to blame obama makes you look silly

Well one thing we have accomplished, we have lost more Americans to global terrorists and created more global terrorists, while spending big and going into debt bigger.
(It only 68 where I live!)

tell that to an active duty U.S. Military, case. And their families and loved ones. Putting their lives on the line for THIS Commander in Chief - not George Bush.

Not me.

Thanks a whole bunch for refusing to address any of the other convenient dem deflections. Like Obama choosing to make his "legacy" based on absurdly suing Arizona or on his dems in leadership positions spending every penny of the American tax payers dollars right now (as well as future generations) - and then refusing to pass a budget (to show any of us - dem or republican that they can tamp down costs in our federal budget - at all) and choose instead to go home on vacation - hoping to skip through the daisies in the upcoming elections - and expect the American public to embrace all of that? Or forget about all of that - debt, debt, debt.

Good luck deflecting dems - with all of that. Including an anything but competent Commander in Chief (Barack Obama) who volunteered for the job of being a Commander in Chief during war-time.

Barack H. Obama certainly did not have to - put his name in for consideration in regard to performing the duties of U.S. President or Commander in Chief of an ongoing war

until the right wing apologists admit iraq was stupid all else is nonsense
 
how anybody with a lick of sense can still defend that war defies all logic

I have no idea what io is trying to say, but if it's that she thinks this president wants to gut the military, she's as loopy as her writings. No where in the article that I posted does it reference anything of the sort.

Talk about twisting what is being said and then adding hysteria to it. Right wing manuevering at is best.

julianne, are you genetically incapable of providing any link with your posts? (http://www.aesopsretreat.com/forum/Smileys/classic/huh.gif)