Spending Rambling
Mitt Romney’s closing remarks from the debate last week about military spending has been bothering me for a while now. One of the last points he mentioned was that he would not propose any cuts whatsoever to the military if elected to keep America the powerhouse it is. Keeping that in mind he proposed all these other spending cuts instead to reduce the deficit, but I don’t get why the military is so untouchable. We could easily cut a sizeable portion of the defense budget and still remain number 1 in the world, even though the world today is more internationally linked and war is less and less useful as a means to an end. I’m not saying we should cut it extensively, but very small reductions can be implemented.
A topic that gained a lot of press was cutting PBS save money, which is far too small of a cut, far too late. Instead of cutting a educational station serving the country, why not cut spending in something out of date with the current international times?
The budget for the DOD in 2012 is 707.5 billion. This doesn’t include Veteran Care, or other services like that. Cutting PBS would save 430 million. Currently there are about 700 American military bases stationed on foreign soil. Some of them are more important than others (bases in the Middle East vs. some in Europe). Of the 707.5 billion, 250 billion is spent on keeping these bases active. That translates to roughly 350 million on average spent on each base. Removing2of these bases covers the costs of PBS and creates a surplus of 270 million. I’m going to assume that the cost of running bases in Europe is much cheaper than the Middle East, but the point is still valid. So if you factor the savings of 700 million (2 bases) out of 707.5 billon, that’s a cut of .09%.
PBS was just to make a point, military spending can be cut instead of other things. We can still have the most powerful military in the world even after minor cuts. How can someone say they are willing to look into budget compromises while still having military views similar to the Post-War era? Times have been changing and maybe we should try to become the World’s source of idea’s and technology instead of its police force.
