Democrats, like Republicans, do not want to cut the Defense budget.

[kentuck]

True or False?

We could easily save a trillion dollars from the defense budget but neither Party wants to appear weak on defense. That is my opinion.

[villager]

1. True. Ultimately - and sadly -- both parties have the same owners.

And they need their "Socialism for war."

not for anything else, mind you! But certainly for their wars.

[patrice]

2. True. nt

[liberal_at_heart]

3. democrats have become more hawkish

I've never understood the argument that you can't close down bases because you would be putting soldiers out of work. Does that mean that the sole purpose of many of our bases is to simply exist for the sake of existing and employing our soldiers? We could save trillions of dollars by cutting defense. Spend some of the money you save on educating them when they come home so they can find employment outside of our military industrial complex.

[libdem4life]

8. Far too logical. I have come to suspect that the military is the new "job training" budget

for both parties...cuts down on unemployment and "education" costs. To have them come home would require domestic funding and compete for an already gutted labor market/situation. Exhibit 1 ... the vet jobs bill failure.

The solution, discourage/underfund becoming a veteran...stay in for career. And that seems to require bases for them to reside and work on.

Look at the income-benefit difference between a 20 year military vet and a 20-year WalMart or McDonald's or Home Depot worker and the SS/Medicare baloney they are flirting with. PTSD, physical disability and other military-caused conditions don't go to the head of the employment line as all jobs are getting harder to come by.

I hope I'm not getting too cynical.

[ChazII]

4. Medical research?

http://cdmrp.army.mil/default.shtml

Click on this link, and then click on the button to the left that gives the research programs that receive money from the DoD. It is sad but necessary for these programs to lose their funding - especially since they are not among the more 'cool' illnesses/disorders etc...

[Sekhmets Daughter]

5. Do you remember when the

military closed a bunch of bases all around the country after 1990 and the end of the cold war? Do you remember how much revenue was lost by the states which lost bases? Would it surprise you to learn that CA was hit the hardest? Or that it lost over 93,000 jobs, both military and civilian DoD, and all the downstream jobs they created?

It's very easy to say we can cut the military budget, but it needs to done with the proverbial scalpel and not a chain saw.

[kentuck]

7. Do you remember when the..

unemployment rate went below 4% after that happened? It was only 4.1% when Bush took office.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

11. What statistics are you looking at?

Here are the CA numbers: 1990 Unemployment was 5.8%, 1991 = 7.8%, 1992 = 9.4%, 1993 = 9.5%, 1994 = 8.6%, 1995 = 7.9%, 1996 = 7.3%, 1997 = 6.4%, 1998 = 6.0% and 1999 back down to 5.3% A decade of high unemployment.

Figures for the US unemployment: 1990 = 5.6%, 1991 = 6.8%, 1992 = 7.5%, 1993 = 6.9%, 1994 = 6.1% 1995 = 5.6%, 1996 = 4.9%

The Tech boom of the 1990s is responsible for the low unemployment during the second half of the 1990s nationwide, but CA stood at 4.9% in 2000. A housing bubble, purposely fueled by Greenspan, kept unemployment low until the entire house of cards collapsed.

I don't like the MIC any more than any other right thinking individual, however I think cutting the budget responsibly is easier said than done

[dballance]

6. True - They have their corporate masters in the MIC just like the GOP /eom

[think]

9. The Dems may not but PROGRESSIVES do! /nt

[99Forever]

10. But how can we be safe from turrrruurrrrrists ...

.. if we don't shovel all of our resources into the black hole, aka The Military/Industrial/Complex?

Der gonna git us, doncha know?

[jmowreader]

12. The defense department creates a lot of small-business jobs

One of the lesser-known facts about the military is the way it buys: they are required, as far as possible, to buy from small businesses and preference is given to minority-owned and woman-owned businesses.

I have in my lap an army surplus "shirt, cold weather, synthetic fiber pile." Soldiers call them smoking jackets. This one is made by Vanderbilt Shirt Co. Vanderbilt probably has no civilian business at all. There are thousands of these little outfits all over America making everything from socks to five-gallon cans of motor oil and selling only to the Defense Logistics Agency. Cutting the defense budget, by and large, means screwing these guys because LockheedMartin has lobbyists the small vendors could never afford.

[democrattotheend]

13. This is a very good point

I am in favor of defense cuts in theory, but it is important to be mindful of the impact these cuts would have on the economy and on American workers.