Realistically, how much do you think we should be spending on Defense budget?
Some estimate the present budget is close to $1 trillion dollars per year, after figuring in Homeland Security, NRO satellites, secret CIA programs, etc.
Homeland Security by itself is approximately $75 billion per year.
How much of this could be cut without threatening our national security?
It seems to me to be the height of insanity to talk about making cuts in Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, etc as they call for $2 trillion more for this massive defense establishment?
Would it be a good idea to take a certain percentage out of each paycheck to pay for defense just as we now do for Social Security? Don't you think they would find a way to make cuts real quickly?
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If the rest of the Modern World wants us to defend them, they can kick into the kitty for our trouble...I.E., if Germany REALLY REALLY wants that U.S. Airbase there, they can pay We The People for half of it's operating costs...
I think we should cut domestic spending on the Army and Air Force (neither of which is Constitutionally Mandated) and transfer about half of that cut to the Navy and Marine Corps (which IS Constitutionally Mandated,) on the premise that the Navy can kick the Hell out of any petty dictator who pisses us off just fine without a standing Army backing them up. I would take the STANDING FEDERAL ARMY we DO have, make it smaller, make it sharper, make it SMARTER, and have it be composed of CAREER MILITARY, meaning, servicemen and women who have already spent at least 2 tours of duty in a State Guard or Reserve force. I want these people to know what they are doing inside and out, I want them to possess an understanding of WHY we don't do thinks like torturing captive prisoners of war/combat, AND, if you decide you want to make ACTIVE service a part of your life/career at the Federal level, a well-rounded, Formal Education should be part of your JOB TRAINING. Smart Warriors make for a better battlefield force than an army of dumb, cannon-fodder Soldiers ever could.
I also think that the State's Guard Forces and any local Militia units (and I use this term loosely in modern parlance--see "idiots running around the backwoods with automatic weapons, plotting the overthrow of the Legitimately Elected Government) should remain under the DIRECT control of the State Governor, until Congress DECLARES WAR, and nothing less than that. If The President wants to go invade Iraq for Weapons of Mass Destruction (see "Oil"
, he can march the FEDERAL ARMY right the hell in there, pretty much whenever the hell he wants to, Constitutionally speaking. But to prop up an ill-conceived land operation with MORE BODIES than you had to work with at the outset, all because you made bad call, should require a decision by We The People, through the Proxy Will of our Elected Congress, and nothing LESS.
(ON EDIT)--Homeland Security needs to go. People are going to try and kill us on occasion, and this is not a thing that bothers me (the caveat being that I DON'T live in Manhattan, and to those who do, I get that you might have a VERY different opinion on the matter, and rightly so). What irritates me to no end is the idea that in order to be Free, I have to be kept in such a state of Forever-Safety, that I am not truly Free an any meaningful sense of the word. Freedom is making a choice, and no one EVER told me that that choice would be a safe one. Only that it would be MY OWN.
Just my 2 cents. Comments and better ideas are welcome, as always.
As a start. 
We could cut defense spending by 50% and still overshadow all these other countries (most of which are our allies). Hmmmm.
http://www.thepaltrysapien.com/2012/03/infographic-top-ten-defence-budgets-2011/
I'd also use the 50% savings for jobs programs, clean energy programs and infrastructure repair and upgrades. But those interests don't have the MIC lobbying power - Oh well...
