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| ▲ | rayiner 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don't want to waste money bombing Iran either, but the total cost of the operation has been $37.5 billion. Meanwhile, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security each grew around $100 billion in the last year. | | |
| ▲ | toomuchtodo 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Direct costs are ~$113B as of June 16th, 2026 (per the Pentagon's briefing to Congress, counter stopped on that date): https://iran-cost-ticker.com/ Iran War Cost Tracker - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47237080 - March 2026 (446 comments) Pentagon Tells Congress First Week of Iran War Cost More Than $11.3 Billion - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/world/middleeast/iran-war... | https://archive.today/Q4oDX - March 11th, 2026 Consumer energy excess cost burden is ~$76B as of this comment (indirect regressive consumer tax): https://iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu/ > Meanwhile, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security each grew around $100 billion in the last year. While we should be efficient with these programs, that's what government is for, and what I pay US federal taxes for: to take care of my fellow citizens. Not to bomb innocent people with overpriced military industrial complex hardware on the other side of the world for illegitimate reasons (F-35 program costs now exceed $2T, for example). https://usafacts.org/government-spending/ Pentagon Fails Eighth Audit, Eyes 2028 Turnaround - https://www.military.com/feature/2025/12/24/pentagon-fails-e... - December 24th, 2025 Annual net interest on debt is ~$900B/year, as of this comment; we could replace Medicare and Medicaid with Medicare for All for ~$2T/year, which would contribute to constraining healthcare spending increases: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48666290. It is an active choice to continue to operate the entire system inefficiently; we could make other, better choices. The inefficiency and debt growth is a result of operating the system for entrenched interests to profit off of the dysfunction. | | |
| ▲ | halJordan 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | A common conceit in these arguments is that you have sole ownership to "what a government is for." Which implicitly denies the opposite argument without addressing it, and attempts to legitimize your own. But social service outlays are absolutely, incontrovertibly a huge & increasing reason for the deficit. All the doge/ Trump/project 2025 cuts have paled in the face of the absolute juggernaut that is domestic spending. And then you realize that state govts spend as much money as the federal govt, while having absolutely no defense budget at all. For you to deny that social spending is problem (especially for what it does buy) totally denigrates you and your position. | | |
| ▲ | Jcowell 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | What does it buy | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Much less for the money than in western europe--even when limiting the analysis to systems like schools and transit that are publicly operated in both places. |
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| ▲ | rayiner 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't have a basis for evaluating that calculation. I'll point out that their methodology seems to rely on taking various estimates of per-day costs then multiplying things out. It also relies on per-campaign costs from prior conflicts and turns them into per-day costs. I don't think you can do that in an intermittent war that has no boots on the ground. Regardless, the federal government's job is, in fact, to bomb hostile countries that threaten shipping lanes. That's the federal government's actual job, not social welfare. I agree that we mistakenly precipitated the situation that now threatens the shipping lanes, but we are where we are. And it's not like that dry firewood wasn't already there. I also don't understand the emotionalism of "fellow citizens." "American" is a label for a group of consumers living within a defined border, who want to get their oil and foreign goods shipped to that location. It's even more clear today that keeping shipping lanes open is the federal government's core responsibility than it was in 1789. | | |
| ▲ | itsdesmond 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | They uh… they were open. They were open before we started bombing. We bomb because we bombed. As a consequence of us murdering we are murdering. > "American" is a label for a group of consumers living within a defined border, who want to get their oil and foreign goods shipped to that location. Holy shit. |
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| ▲ | malvim 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Except these programs keep your people alive and healthy and able to work and consume and live. The other money just kills people. And it’s also not just about this “operation” (aggression war). It’s about the whole military budget. Come on, now. | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It’s about the whole military budget. I also thought that the military budget was too big... in 1998. But in 2026, Europe is raising defense spending targets to 3.5% of GDP, which is more than what the U.S. spends: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyz4nq91wpo It turns out that, if the U.S. isn't willing to guarantee your security, you have to spend 3-5% of GDP on defense (just like Europe used to do before 1990). As the U.S. loses hegemony and we move to a multi-polar world, everyone's military budgets will go up. |
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| ▲ | TimorousBestie 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [RETRACTED] | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | You have me confused with someone else. This was me 3 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47986799 > If American foreign policy was rational, we wouldn’t have been involved in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now Iran. Not to mention Somalia, Kosovo, and Libya, and countless minor skirmishes. We’ve been throwing kids into the meat grinder for 75 years, and lighting dollars on fire, for no good reason. There’s no reason for us to light money on fire having bases all over the world, when we have two huge oceans to protect us. | | |
| ▲ | TimorousBestie 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Fair enough, I retract my earlier comment. That's not an inconsistent position to hold. My apologies. | | |
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| ▲ | joinjune 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Both can be true. The previous administration bailed out the unfunded pension funds of cities and state employees when they did Covid-19 bailouts despite it having nothing to do with Covid-19 and without requiring these local governments to properly fund these pensions moving forward. They bailed these pension programs out many times more than their financial support for restaurants they forced closed. Basically, America has an economy that is buoyed by AI development and infrastructure spending right now but is poised to pop and the national debt has been ballooned by two to three generations of political leadership failing to properly address underlying issues and instead printing money. | | |
| ▲ | notfromhere 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The problem is that half the political system thinks you can cut taxes and grow revenues. Which is an intentional strategy to repeal social programs that they’d never get the votes to do so via legislation | | |
| ▲ | citrin_ru 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a difficult tradeoff. By taxing more and more it's easy to send the economy into the death spiral so to grow the revenue without killing the economy you need economic growth. Cutting taxes will not give the growth aromatically but carefully designed tax system with low taxes where it helps should be a part of the strategy. In practice though tax cuts usually make rich richer without helping the economy to grow (because of lobbying/corruption). | | |
| ▲ | hvb2 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > In practice though tax cuts usually make rich richer without helping the economy to grow (because of lobbying/corruption). This is being generous. It's much simpler. The poor don't pay any federal taxes at all so you can't give them a tax cut because they don't pay any. You can give them a credit at best. Edit: Some data > Another 60.3 million returns showed AGIs of less than $30,000. The average effective tax rate for those taxpayers was 1.5%, even before refundable tax credits were applied. From: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/18/who-pays-... | | |
| ▲ | citrin_ru 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The poor don't pay any federal taxes at all so you can't give them a tax cut Even if we exclude poor there are many options how to split taxes between different income brackets, how to tax salaries vs capital gain, how to split taxes between individuals and businesses, how to avoid loopholes e. t. c. (e. g. in the UK I see small business struggling because of rising taxes while multinationals pay little taxes by moving profits offshore and reporting no profits in the UK). | |
| ▲ | SlightlyLeftPad 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 37% of personal returns below the standard deduction is way more than I would have expected. |
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| ▲ | rayiner 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > The problem is that half the political system thinks you can cut taxes and grow revenues. And the other half thinks you can pay for a European-style welfare state without European-style middle class taxes. Americans are Disney adults. | | |
| ▲ | bhelkey 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US spends $2 Trillion dollars on Medicare + Medicaid a year [1][2]. Given that the US has a population of 342.7 million people [3], those two trillion dollars divides out to $5800 per resident per year. The UK's universal healthcare system costs ~$4700 per person per year (~£3,500)[4]. If we could spend healthcare dollars as efficiently as the UK, the current government spending in the US is enough to support a single payer healthcare system covering every resident without raising taxes. [1] https://www.cms.gov/data-research/statistics-trends-and-repo... [2] https://www.kff.org/medicaid/medicaid-financing-the-basics/#... [3] https://www.census.gov/popclock/ [4] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy7zvp5xrqo | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Given that the US has a population of 342.7 million people [3], we could have single payer healthcare for every resident without raising taxes if it cost less than $5800 per person per year. The UK's universal healthcare system costs ~$4700 per person per year (~£3,500)[4]. Except we couldn't. For the same reason our public schools can't get Finland's test scores while spending $3,000 less per student pear year than the U.S. For the same reason our public transit systems can't build subways for $100 million per km, like Spain. | | |
| ▲ | bhelkey 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | If your implication is that this is a private vs public spending problem, that's not it. Healthcare in the US (both private and public) costs dramatically more than in other developed countries. Why that is is a bit complicated and doesn't have a single root cause. It's also a bit tricky because every major component blames the other components for the total cost. Part of the problem (roughly 10% by one estimation I read) is drug prices. Drug prices in the US are >2x the price as compared to other developed countries [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK611301/ | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If your implication is that this is a private vs public spending problem, that's not it. No, my point is that we couldn't achieve UK costs by doing "single payer." Our publicly funded systems, like schools and transit, are also cost-inefficient (public schools somewhat less so, public transmit somewhat more so). | | |
| ▲ | bhelkey 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | Again, healthcare in the US is dramatically more expensive than in other countries. This is true for publicly funded healthcare (e.g. Medicare) and privately funded healthcare. I already mentioned drug prices, another input in the cost of US healthcare is the cost of physician salaries. Physicians in the US are paid ~2x what physicians in the UK are paid [1]. One input to physician salaries is that we limited the number of new doctors by limiting the number of residency positions. [1] https://www.physiciansweekly.com/post/how-do-us-physician-sa... | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm not denying it's more expensive. I'm disagreeing with your premise that we could reach the cost effectiveness of European countries. Europe and America aren't interchangeable. You can't achieve the same results in each just by turning the policy knobs to the same settings. | | |
| ▲ | bhelkey 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I reject your argument. It is easier to see when comparing the cost of goods. It is not a fact of life that goods in the US cost 2x the price of equivalent goods in the UK. If I compare the prices of a PS5 in the US to a PS5 in the UK (excluding the 20% Tax), they are basically the same price [1]. If I buy a pair of 501 Levi's jeans in the UK [2] and a pair of 501 Levi's jeans from the US [3] I pay basically the same price (again excluding VAT). If I buy a Ford compact crossover in the US and buy a Ford compact crossover in the UK, I pay basically the same price of ~$33k. Please explain why it is a fact of life that a drug in the US costs considerably more than the same drug from the same manufacturer just purchased in Europe. Why can we not compare the cost of drugs Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, ... to the price of drugs in the US? And again, drugs cost considerably more in the US whether they were purchased publicly or privately. [1] https://blog.playstation.com/2026/03/27/new-price-changes-fo... [2] https://www.levi.com/GB/en_GB/clothing/men/jeans/straight/50... [3] https://www.levi.com/US/en_US/clothing/men/jeans/straight/50... | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I reject your argument. It is easier to see when comparing the cost of goods. It is not a fact of life that goods in the US cost 2x the price of equivalent goods in the UK. Services aren't goods manufactured in a single place. Delivery of healthcare services in the U.S. versus U.K. reflect myriad factors that are rooted in differences between Americans and British people. Americans wouldn't tolerate the trade-offs in the British healthcare system--a system I think is very good, btw--for the same reason they wouldn't tolerate living in little British houses or driving little British cars. > Please explain why it is a fact of life that a drug in the US costs considerably more than the same drug from the same manufacturer just purchased in Europe. It's a policy determination to subsidize drug companies to make sure we get access to the latest drugs. | | |
| ▲ | bhelkey 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Americans wouldn't tolerate the trade-offs in the British healthcare system I do not believe this is true. Keep in mind that the UK has universal healthcare (NHS) but also has a private healthcare system. The private healthcare system can be used to prioritize speed, comfort, elective procedures, ... Around 12% of the UK population has private medical insurance [1]. > It's a policy determination to subsidize drug companies to make sure we get access to the latest drugs. There are cases in which a drug is under extreme demand outstripping manufacturing capacity. In these cases, paying more can provide access to a limited resource. However, to my eyes, this appears to be an unusual occurrence rather than the typical state of drug production worldwide. I don't see evidence that the amount the US pays for drugs results in dramatically higher access. I believe the opposite is true. If a drug is available in a US pharmacy but it is unaffordable, does one have access to it? I would say no. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jan/30/almost-one-i... |
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| ▲ | ModernMech 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Right they (the politicians) don't actually think that, they just say that to get cooked projections. Once those revenue projections turn out to be false, it doesn't matter because they already have their tax cuts baked in. Then everyone can blame the other side for deficits and campaign on fixing it. Rinse and repeat. | | |
| ▲ | thenewnewguy 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Let's be clear and not do this both sides thing - by "they" we mean Republicans. You may not agree with their policies or what they want to spend money on, but Democrats (at least in aggregate) live in the real world where they acknowledge for the government to spend money they will have to raise taxes. Republicans are the only party that in the 21st century acts as though we can simultaneously cut taxes and increase spending and everything will be fine. | | |
| ▲ | ghastmaster 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | As far as I have seen, in federal politics, the majority(left and right) spends, while taxes in general have not been significantly increased or decreased(percentage). What you are talking about is their rhetoric, which may be rhetorical itself. What does change(and is more important) is Debt/Revenue: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=TZfm The ratio is looking like it is trending in the right direction. If GDP decreases while nominal tax receipts increase, GDP does not change the debt, while the debt/Revenue ratio looks good for paying bills, while not boding well for economic health. What is this "real world" you are referring to? There has to be a balance between current and future expenditures and economic health to facilitate these. Nothing exists in a vacuum. | |
| ▲ | rayiner 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Democrats absolutely do not "live in the real world" regarding taxes: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/07/19/medicare-... "Taxing billionaires" is the left's version of "cut Medicaid fraud." It's a message for low-information voters who have a gut feeling that free stuff will require more taxes, but get confused converting from billions to trillions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/06/msnbc-sug... That's why Democrats say "we're the only developed western country without universal healthcare," but never "we're the only developed western country without a 15%+ VAT." | |
| ▲ | win311fwg 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are two ways to tax the people: By destroying money or by creating money. Republicans may generally prefer creating money over destroying money, but that doesn't mean they aren't applying taxation. "Tax cuts" in normal speak just means a reduction in how much money is being destroyed. It does not refer to a reduction in your tax burden. | | |
| ▲ | SlightlyLeftPad 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I’m not an economist but when trillions of dollars are created doesn’t that create an illusion of sorts of economic growth (revenue growth) in the form of inflation while also having the effect of making the general population poorer by reducing their buying power? | | |
| ▲ | win311fwg 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > making the general population poorer by reducing their buying power Exactly. Also known as a tax. You can make someone poorer by taking their money and destroying it, or you can make someone poorer by letting them keep their money and devalue it by creating more. Same coin no matter which side you want to look at it. There is no such thing as a free lunch. The taxes are always going to get paid in the end. The only choice is in exactly how you want to pay it. Each method has its own set of tradeoffs, so, like with everything, different groups understandably believe in different methods. In practice, both methods will be used. Nobody, apart from the previous commenter, is ever completely hardline "money must only be destroyed" or "money must only be created", but groups will still debate over what is the optimal ratio. |
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| ▲ | bilsbie 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The problem is not that we aren’t taxed enough— it’s that our government lights cash on fire Here is some absurd garbage your US taxes paid for: •$1.5 Million studying the effects of yoga on goats •$1.7 billion maintaining empty buildings •$5 million on a campaign to promote an alternative music scene to get hipsters to stop smoking •$2 million to create an internship program that resulted in the hiring of one full-time employee at the Department of agriculture •In 2021 alone, the government managed to misplace $281 billion in payments •$1 million studying the effects of music on dairy cows •$1.7 million to study the effects of alcohol on fish | | |
| ▲ | bodiekane 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Every good aspect of modern life and modern medicine, technology, etc started with fundamental research that can be made to sound silly. Some grad student studies the effects of alcohol on fish, learns something new about biology, publishes it so that other students and researchers learn about it, and a few years later after some new studies based on that initial research we get a new cancer drug. Somebody spends $1 million studying the effects of music on dairy cows, learns that they produce more milk if calming music is played and farmers increase revenues by $10 million per year by adding speakers to their milking rooms. The billions of dollars spent blowing up infrastructure in the middle east is just a loss, but money spent on research is how we've cured diseases, increased crop yields, launched satellites, and made it so that everyone can have a supercomputer in their pocket that can stream HD video through the air. | | |
| ▲ | Terr_ 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Another example: Studying bacterial scum in Yellowstone Park leads to the effectiveness of modern Polymerase Chain Reaction tests, the thing most people think of when they visualize a "DNA test." |
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| ▲ | SoftTalker 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | True that the government spends a lot on stuff that it shouldn't, but these examples don't make much of a case. Single-digit millions are not even pocket change here. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | But they're still wastes of money, and based on the one-line description provided by the OP, they are rather absurd. A few others I can think of: Government insurance/funding for homes destroyed by natural disasters - why am I bailing out Florida homeowners when their home is destroyed by a hurricane? At best you get the first one free and then you're on your own after that.
Billions for highway construction that is not needed, which then costs more to maintain and results in more spending on cars, more deaths, higher costs for insurance, &c.
Various improper payments, billions in subsidies handed out, COVID-19 bailouts and forgiveness
The broad point wasn't wrong. The government does waste money and frankly is pretty damn well-funded. | | |
| ▲ | 8note 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think it would be more wasteful overall to not give that bailout to florida home owners. A walking migrant crisis and maintaining the refugee camps for impovrished floridians after a hurricane sounds extremely expensive for a long time. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sounds like an excuse for anyone to justify their spending, ergo American debt-to-GDP ratio continues to increase |
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| ▲ | dahart 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The broad point above by @bilsbie is wrong. Fake made up items completely undermine the point’s credibility, and science spending in the U.S. provides a return on investment, it’s not losing money. That is pure political propaganda and not truth. Your new items have a touch more validity than top comment, but you’re making vast assumptions and stating opinions not shared by all, and not accounting for the economic costs of the alternatives you’re suggesting. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, I don't agree with you at all and continuing to argue about it just makes me more convinced the OP was right to point out those specific items. I'm not interested in complaints about the GDP to debt ratio being too high if when someone points out wasteful expense, regardless of how minor, they and others are met with derision and arguments. At that point yea spend whatever who cares about the debt? |
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| ▲ | quickthrowman 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Name a huge organization that doesn’t waste money. I’ll give you as much time as you need. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | "All organizations waste money, therefore organizations should keep wasting money and it's actually fine" doesn't sound very compelling to me. | | |
| ▲ | 8note 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | the talk of waste is in service of thw question "is the government well funded enough?" and so far it does not appear that reducing waste would properly fund the government? a couple patriot missiles worth is not the debt, and would not allow for much more efficient single payer health care - the single biggest opportunity the US government has to reduce waste in american society | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Again you can do both - you can cut these wasteful programs, you can have a well-funded government that's already well-funded with trillions of dollars, and then also reform healthcare all without raising taxes. Use your imagination. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | My imagination is indeed very capable of magical thinking. However, if this was something that worked in the real world, we wouldn't be having this conversation because e.g. DOGE would have been successful. | |
| ▲ | quickthrowman 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That sounds nice in a perfectly spherical world but we live in reality. Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us. Net discretionary spending is only 27% of the budget, social security, Medicare, and military spending make up the other 73%. If you eliminated all discretionary spending, we’d still be running a budget deficit. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Getting bogged down in line item spending is a trick politicians use to divide us. Politicians? You're sitting here arguing about the line item spending instead of just admitting we should cut obviously bad spending. That's the division that's taking place and it's happening right here in this thread and it's your doing! lol |
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| ▲ | ben_w 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Quick search says that list is a mix of misleading and untrue. That said, 1.5 million on goats, 1 on cows, 1.7 million on fish, these are all perfectly reasonable research costs compared to the potential benefit to agriculture on the scale of the USA, well within the "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" kind of territory; likewise 5 on an anti-smoking campaign and th health burden of smoking in a nation as big as the USA. | |
| ▲ | elteto 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You made a tiny mistake, you forgot the $800 billion for the military! | | |
| ▲ | regularization 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Even more $859 billion to DoD $339 billion Veterans benefits Then when we look at the $952 billion in interest, a good chunk of that is due to past military spending. Plus even more - tens of billions of the military nuclear budget is done via the DoE, not the DoD in the budget line. There's always a hand waving that previous debts accumulated like veteran's benefits and military related debt interest are not military spending, but they obviously are. | |
| ▲ | ericmay 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No you forgot the wasted spending on Social Security, Medicaid, and other subsidies! See, other people can throw in snide remarks too. There's room to debate military spending, but if you view the world as a dangerous place and that the US should not become isolationist, we have to spend the money and have equipment ready and capable whether that's in Europe or in Asia. Alternatively we can disband much of the military, stop paying for this stuff, withdraw from NATO, remove overseas bases in countries like Japan and South Korea, and leave the world to deal with its own problems. | | |
| ▲ | elteto 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Most of that money is wasted on keeping the military industrial complex fat and happy, it's not going into soldier's pockets. And I say this being pro-US and indeed seeing the world as a dangerous place. But let's not make some bullshit up about a million dollars wasted on some non-sense, when we have real problems with the DoW, which can't even audit itself, sucking up almost a trillion dollars. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Most of that money is wasted on keeping the military industrial complex fat and happy, it's not going into soldier's pockets. And I say this being pro-US and indeed seeing the world as a dangerous place. Hi former active duty soldier here - I'm all for generally increasing pay, but you're just making claims here without any basis for them. It cost a lot of money to maintain the industries capable of producing weapons. We can stop the spending, but then they go out of business and now that capability is lost. Look at Europe. Depends on the details. What specific waste are you talking about? Here's [1] an article that came out recently highlighting how much of our explosives and munitions manufacturing is reliant on just a few locations - cut the DoD budget, and then these are the kinds of things that happen. Secondly, you have no expertise or authority to make claims as to whether we're spending the right amount of money - whether that's too little or too much, without additional specific logic or factual claims. When you say the DoD is sucking up a trillion dollars you're implying that it's all waste - sorry don't think that's true. And when you look at the performance of equipment that other countries provide versus the US, you know our stuff actually works as advertised. Maybe the US is actually spending too little, and other countries are spending proportionally much less on vaporware? [1] https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/western-powers-race-to-brin... | | |
| ▲ | hvb2 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's funny you go within a single paragraph from > you have no expertise or authority to make claims as to whether we're spending the right amount of money To > Maybe the US is actually spending too little, and other countries are spending proportionally much less on vaporware? But more on topic, the real question is if this is spending that is worth going into debt for. No family anywhere in the world can sustain a long period of overspending relative to income. You talk about weapons and stuff but just understand that you're handing over your bargaining power because the rest of the world controls your debt. And at these ratios thats significant leverage. By now you can win a war without a single shot being fired. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > It's funny you go within a single paragraph from You made a general, pedestrian claim about spending, I questioned your claim based on what you wrote. That's all. I wouldn't read in to it more than that. > But more on topic, the real question is if this is spending that is worth going into debt for. No family anywhere in the world can sustain a long period of overspending relative to income. Sure but then we can just cut in other areas that aren't the military, if that's what we decide to do. You're not making a serious claim that we're overspending. > You talk about weapons and stuff but just understand that you're handing over your bargaining power because the rest of the world controls your debt. And at these ratios thats significant leverage. Not really. Most US debt is owed to Americans, and in the circumstances in which we're worried about some other country amassing so much debt that they can leverage us, well, it's a good thing we bought all those ships, planes, and tanks and whatnot so we can fix the issue with kinetic force. > By now you can win a war without a single shot being fired. Yea true enough in some cases. I'm not sure I'd disband the US military, withdraw from NATO, relocate US personnel from overseas bases supporting allies in the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and elsewhere under the assumption that maybe we can win a war without any weapons. But I'm certainly interested in your view here. | | |
| ▲ | hvb2 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > You made a general, pedestrian claim about spending I didn't do anything, that wasn't me. > You're not making a serious claim that we're overspending. This is the thread about debt to GDP ratio hitting 123%. I don't claim anything, but if this isn't overspending then I think we agree to disagree. > Not really. Most US debt is owed to Americans, and in the circumstances in which we're worried about some other country amassing so much debt that they can leverage us, well, it's a good thing we bought all those ships, planes, and tanks and whatnot so we can fix the issue with kinetic force. According to [1], 23.5% is owned by foreign investors. That's a minority of the total, but you don't need a majority to cause a big problem because trust is all that matters (see 2008). You want to solve that with weapons?? That'll only make everyone drop the dollar, as simple as that. > But I'm certainly interested in your view here. The US military is there in all of those countries for influence, more so than for actual defense. The US can defend every NATO country simply by reaffirming article 5, you don't have to be present. Not even Russia would attempt an attack, they've been in a war of attrition for years now with a non NATO country with no end in sight for limited gains in territory. They've done this for the past 70 years, starting from 1945. Whether this is something the US has benefitted from can be debated, I think they certainly have. The Russia vs Ukraine war and the Iran conflict show that super powers can try to use their military power but 'winning' is hard. No matter how superior you are based on the numbers. Iran isn't winning on the battlefield, their most potent weapon is economic, that has turned out to be more powerful than all their weapons combined. 1: https://www.us-debt-clock.com/blog/who-owns-us-debt-breakdow... | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I didn't do anything, that wasn't me. Ok you're defending it. > I don't claim anything, but if this isn't overspending then I think we agree to disagree. Ok if it's over-spending then let's cut the programs that align with my ideology instead of cutting military spending. > You want to solve that with weapons?? That'll only make everyone drop the dollar, as simple as that. Not worried at all - those dollars become worthless in a fire sale. The strength of the dollar is because of the actual physical reality and capabilities of the United States. > The Russia vs Ukraine war and the Iran conflict show that super powers can try to use their military power but 'winning' is hard. No matter how superior you are based on the numbers. Iran isn't winning on the battlefield, their most potent weapon is economic, that has turned out to be more powerful than all their weapons combined. You're directionally right but also wrong w.r.t America. What you've shown here isn't a weakness of the US, but a strength of the US. Unlike Russia we spend and that spending (overspending according to some) ensures that our equipment works. That's why when Iran went and bought Russian and Chinese air defense for example, we blew it up with impunity. Iran is of course hard because we have some political considerations which would only get worse over time as we would have continued to do nothing, Iran would build more missiles and drones and then seize control of the Strait of Hormuz and then it would be too costly to do anything to stop them from doing that or continuing their nuclear weapons program. Specifically in the case of economic warfare, Iran is losing badly. The worst outcome is some MAGA coal rollers have to pay more for gas. Iran's economy literally doesn't function due to our blockade (which means we also control the Strait of Hormuz). I'd rather pay extra at the pump (well I drive an EV but w/e) then have like 80% of my economy held hostage. But this also reinforces the need for a higher military budget and the need to spend more to acquire more arms and capabilities. By the way, the military budget isn't actually that high as a percentage of GDP. You're welcome to do that comparison yourself. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Specifically in the case of economic warfare, Iran is losing badly. The worst outcome is some MAGA coal rollers have to pay more for gas. Iran's economy literally doesn't function due to our blockade (which means we also control the Strait of Hormuz). I'd rather pay extra at the pump (well I drive an EV but w/e) then have like 80% of my economy held hostage. No, the worst outcome is Iran continues to mess up everyone else in the region until there's nothing left to damage, leading to: • $300+/barrel for a sustained period
• US GDP falling 10%
• 10-15% inflation overall, mostly in fuel, but also up to 30% in food
• Unemployment reaching 12%
• The Strategic Petroleum Reserve hits engineering limits (which happen well before "running out") in 1-2 months
I don't expect this to happen, because the US has allies who are not impotent. However, right now Iran seems to have the strategic and weapons (no really*) advantages vs. the USA that Ukraine has vs. Russia, so it is a risk worth taking seriously.Also in the "however" list: you may hit the limits of the SPR anyway, just from the reduced supply through Hormuz. And the situation between Ukraine and Russia may do something like that to food all by itself that this would compound on top of. * really cheap, making it possible to saturate target's defence | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | > * really cheap, making it possible to saturate target's defence Which is precisely the reason to attack now before this problem becomes much worse and then Iran adds in nuclear weapons too. > However, right now Iran seems to have the strategic and weapons (no really*) advantages vs. the USA that Ukraine has vs. Russia, so it is a risk worth taking seriously. I just disagree. Even in your scenario for example the US GDP falling 10%, well, we can stomach that. If we can't, we should pack up the military because any war is going to threaten GDP and we won't be able to defend NATO against a Russian attack (nor can Europe because GDP will fall) nor can we defend Taiwan. I think you and many others are confusing "I don't like this war" with "we can't tolerate temporary disruptions and price shocks". But in any case Iran's GDP falls 90%, that's much more devastating. Their unemployment rate goes close to 90%. They are already blockaded and we control the Strait of Hormuz too (in order to control the Strait they have to be able to allow access as well, not just deny - we deny too so technically either neither party controls it or we both do). You're certainly right to point out additional potential damage to regional partners and allies (which further proves the point that this problem must be resolved else Iran can threaten this at any time), but if Iran were to attempt to execute such an attack, it would create a global problem necessitating a global response, troops on the ground, the actual Iranian regime dead - don't forget they do have lives they want to live and we can ensure they and their families don't have that privilege. Iran just the other day struck a ship in the Suez Canal - these global chokepoints can't live hostage to an Iranian regime just because whoops they decided they don't like that the US sold Patriot missiles to Ukraine which they're using to defend against Iran's buddy Russia so you better stop or we'll attack the Strait and the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. We simply cannot and will not live under threat. Separately I wouldn't liken Russia vs Ukraine to Iran vs America. They're not at all similar outside of a small discussion about the increasing important of drone warfare which the US is already well aware of. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Which is precisely the reason to attack now before this problem becomes much worse and then Iran adds in nuclear weapons too. Perhaps. However, there are many alternatives to "attack" besides "do nothing". > Even in your scenario for example the US GDP falling 10%, well, we can stomach that. If we can't, we should pack up the military because any war is going to threaten GDP and we won't be able to defend NATO against a Russian attack (nor can Europe because GDP will fall) nor can we defend Taiwan. You can't defend Taiwan, full stop. If and when China decides to attack, they're smart enough to make sure to use the right weapons for the conflict, and that any allies Taiwan has won't get involved. Right now, the US is making this even easier for China by depleting the only weapons it does have, though this is only of minor relevance as what the US has is not even a good match for a China conflict in the first place. The best Taiwan can hope for in the near-term is a mix of promising it will be pyrrhic, and possibly surprising everyone with some anti-drone solution that has yet to be demonstrated. > I think you and many others are confusing "I don't like this war" with "we can't tolerate temporary disruptions and price shocks". > But in any case Iran's GDP falls 90%, that's much more devastating. With this, you are making the same mistake as with Vietnam, "We thought we were winning because we killed more of them than they killed of us", or whatever the quote was. Iran's a dictatorship, they DGAF. You're not a dictatorship (not yet, and long may it remain so), your government answers to the people, and the people repeatedly demonstrate they can't tolerate temporary (though in this case I mean "a year or two") disruptions and price shocks. This issue in your nation has been made worse by the piss-poor comms from the White House, that seems to simultaneously want everyone to think they totally wiped out all possible threat from Iran in the previous strikes, and yet also simultaneously Iran remains a threat requiring further and more expensive military expenses and action. > Iran were to attempt to execute such an attack, it would create a global problem necessitating a global response, troops on the ground, the actual Iranian regime dead - don't forget they do have lives they want to live and we can ensure they and their families don't have that privilege. Iran just the other day struck a ship in the Suez Canal - these global chokepoints can't live hostage to an Iranian regime just because whoops they decided they don't like that the US sold Patriot missiles to Ukraine which they're using to defend against Iran's buddy Russia so you better stop or we'll attack the Strait and the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. We simply cannot and will not live under threat. The global response so far has been "America caused this mess. Sure almost all of us think Iran's leadership is awful, but this is America's mess, America can damn well clean up after itself." Quite a lot of us are even hoping you'll get stuck there, wasting your weapons and personnel, just so you don't make another threat against the sovereignties of technically-still-allies. The allies in the region have the more immediate threat from Iran. But half of Europe already noped out in no small part because of Greenland. |
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| ▲ | hvb2 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Ok if it's over-spending then let's cut the programs that align with my ideology instead of cutting military spending. Yes, I think the question of whether or not the US is living above its means is settled. Where you cut is a political decision. I certainly think the US can reduce its military spending, with an emphasis on reduce. > The strength of the dollar is because of the actual physical reality and capabilities of the United States. I don't think this is true at all. It's value is a result of being the reserve currency of the world and as a result a lot of things being denominated in USD. The financial system will lose so much if the dollar devalues significantly that that's a bad outcome to almost everyone, not just the US. I think the actual capabilities of the US have 0 influence there. Certainly military capabilities. That kind of stuff is true for drug cartels, not global financial stability. You cannot force anyone to buy dollars by force. > You're directionally right but also wrong w.r.t America. I think you're wrong here. But not in the sense you might expect. You present your reading as a fact. I think how you read the current situation with Iran is a question of how you interpret the situation. For example, you say > Iran's economy literally doesn't function due to our blockade (which means we also control the Strait of Hormuz). The US has never controlled the strait. The biggest win for Iran is that it has asserted being able to block it. The US can block any ships going to and coming from Iran's ports. It cannot and has never been able to guarantee safe passage through the strait. That last fact is Iran's biggest win of the conflict as it has now shown that even when the US goes full scale war, it can still shut off the strait for all intents and purposes. The other miscalculation is that while you might have air superiority, it should be clear by now that the US can't win from the air alone. And Iran might have known/gambled that the US wasn't willing to commit to a ground offensive. As bad as it sounds to be bombed whenever your enemy wants, from a strategic point of view I think this makes sense. Horrible for the population but the regime doesn't care. > The worst outcome is some MAGA coal rollers have to pay more for gas. Uh no. The US lost quite a bit of respect I think for this intervention. We need to see what a final cease fire might look like but the whole world is essentially asking what the hell this whole endeavour was for. The whole world is paying higher gas prices and in a lot of other countries especially south east Asia there is a much bigger dependency on Middle East oil. Those people aren't happy about this at all. It might not even be higher prices but outright shortages. And wait for food prices to shoot up because of more expensive fertilizer for example. The problem with a lot of this is that the American view doesn't extend past its borders. You see spending on bombs and some higher gas prices. Other countries see shortages and higher food prices. Just remember how pissed off America was when egg prices went up because of avian flu. Now imagine a foreign power being responsible. The decision makers can't even explain the actual goal, and when they try it seems to be shifting all the time. > But this also reinforces the need for a higher military budget and the need to spend more to acquire more arms and capabilities. In the end I think it comes down to one simple assumption. You seem to be convinced that with enough military spending the US can force a country to do what it wants. I think that that's not possible at all (see Russia and the Iran conflict right now) let alone at a cost that any country can bear. The US clearly is already struggling to pay for it all. > By the way, the military budget isn't actually that high as a percentage of GDP. You're welcome to do that comparison yourself. Sure, but I never said that. The problem is that you don't raise the money to pay for your spending. It's a significant chunk of the federal budget and that will need to be balanced at some point. Every US household knows this, they have to do it every month. |
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| ▲ | hvb2 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > No you forgot the wasted spending on Social Security, Medicaid, and other subsidies! Most of that money ends up being spent in communities (grocery stores etc) and hospitals. So at least that money flows back into a local community. There's plenty wrong with the US healthcare system, but since the vast majority gets their healthcare through their employer you'll have to come up with something for when they retire or unable to work. That's just an outcome of how the system was set up. | |
| ▲ | Terr_ 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > No you forgot the wasted spending on Social Security [...] See, other people can throw in snide remarks too. No, snide and wrong is extremely different! Social Security spending is already funded by a separate tax and currently running a surplus. It's what our legislators are are debt to when use the discretionary budget to let the President start a game of Battleship in the straight of Hormuz. | | |
| ▲ | ericmay 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > No, snide and wrong is extremely different! Snide and wrong! You must be talking about the OP then and not me. > Social Security spending is already funded by a separate tax and currently running a surplus. If someone doesn't want to pay in to it, what difference does whether it's fully-funded or not make? > It's what our legislators are are debt to when use the discretionary budget to let the President start a game of Battleship in the straight of Hormuz. Or when they enact a pet project you agree with and others disagree with. |
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| ▲ | rayiner 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | People need to ditch their 1990s talking points. US military expenditures are near historic lows: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat.... We currently spend 3.4% of GDP, which is less than the new NATO target of 3.5%. China and Russia, meanwhile, spend about $450 billion. And you know they get a lot more for their dollar than we do. | |
| ▲ | chasd00 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > you forgot the $800 billion for the military! I agree but i wouldn't be that upset if that money was spent on soldier's pay and buying things or R/D from US companies built in the United States while employing US citizens. To me, that's a decent tax/spend jobs program. Now, military money flowing overseas and propping up some other economy? There could be valid reasons but that deserves to go under a microscope. | | |
| ▲ | 8note 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | youd be pleasently surprised to find out that same as most aid the US gives out, military aid is mostly in the form of cheques from which to buy US equipment and materiel the people who came up with these spends thought hard about what to do and how |
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| ▲ | hyldmo 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 1.5 trillion next year! |
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| ▲ | adamsmark 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Any sources on the $1.5M effects of yoga on goats study? Google nor ChatGPT could find anything. | |
| ▲ | hvb2 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > $2 million to create an internship program that resulted in the hiring of one full-time employee at the Department of agriculture Because the private sector doesn't spend any money on things that don't work out. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You talk about millions, that's not even a rounding error. Look around you in any private entity, you don't see them spending any tiny fraction on things you don't think are worthwhile? > $1.7 billion maintaining empty buildings Assuming they at some point become occupied again, I don't see the issue. The vacancy rate in the private sector isn't anywhere near 0% either. > In 2021 alone, the government managed to misplace $281 billion in payments You'll need to be way more specific than 'misplaced' | |
| ▲ | dahart 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Are you not aware that science research has a positive return on investment to the economy? Consider reviewing https://www.goldengooseaward.org/ Making fun of science that politicians, wanna be politicians, and conservative media don’t remotely understand in order to deflect and hide actual economic problems they cause is a favorite pastime, but is almost always misleading. The goat yoga thing isn’t true, it’s pure viral talking point made up nonsense. (And none of the points are made in good faith.) Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, especially if Elon Musk retweets it. |
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| ▲ | jhickok 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's likely not politically feasible for a genuine attempt at right-sizing our budget, although we have had attempts (short-lived) in the past. Blaming a political party for this is pointless, although there is a party that has postured as the fiscal adult in the room. It could be a very messy bubble if/when it collapses, and I think our way out at this point would have to be AI-driven productivity gains. Hopefully Altman's little wish-granting machine ends up being accurate. | |
| ▲ | toomuchtodo 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Bailing out workers is okay. They are, by definition, the people who have done the work. Bailing out the wealthy, or tax cuts for them is not. Unless you are very wealthy, you are a worker, and unless you experience a lottery winning type event, will never be very wealthy. > Basically, America has an economy that is buoyed by AI development and infrastructure spending right now but is poised to pop and the national debt has been ballooned by two to three generations of political leadership failing to properly address underlying issues and instead printing money. Maybe we shouldn't have spent five decades giving the wealthy tax break after tax break while hollowing out the middle class and suppressing wages with union busting and globalization. Productivity is up ~90% over this time frame, and most of the gains have gone to the top 1%. But here we are. The bill has come due for strip mining the country economically, and taxes will go up to pay down this debt (because only the top ~40% of income earners have enough income to have a federal tax liability). We will fix this eventually through demographic compression (economic growth comes, broadly speaking, from population growth and the US has reached peak population; forward growth will be substantially lower than the past when the population was growing rapidly), politics, and the bond market forcing the US government to raise taxes (“bond vigilantes”). | | |
| ▲ | chasd00 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > forcing the US government to raise taxes. it won't be the wealthy or cash-under-the-table classes paying these taxes, the increases will be in the income brackets. Which means paycheck receiving working stiffs ( middle and upper-middle class ) and retierees drawing from a 401k/IRA are the ones who will pay just like always. | |
| ▲ | quickthrowman 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Bailing out workers is okay. Bailing out the wealthy, or tax cuts for them is not. Hell, between PPP and the OBBB tax cuts, rich people are getting $2T over from the YS Governemnt from 2020-2030. It’ll keep happening too, this country is an oligarchy now. Wish it wouldn’t but I don’t see a sea change coming, just further concentration of wealth and power. |
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| ▲ | throwaway894345 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are more than two numbers, so we don't have to force this weird "it's either 0% waste or 100% waste" dichotomy. No one is claiming the Biden admin didn't waste a cent, the claim is that the Trump administration is wasting _orders of magnitude_ more money than the Biden administration. |
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| ▲ | jmpman 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | As much as people may dislike Regan, his goal for reducing taxes on the wealthy was based upon the laffer curve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve The hypothesis is that lowering taxes rates will actually increase government revenues. The Trump cuts don't feel like they're laffer optimal. Instead they feel like political capture by the wealthy class. A cumulative of left of laffer optimal tax strategies over the past years have resulted in a deficit growing at rates which now exceed what a laffer peak rate would now support. - the rich got their tax breaks, and have contributed to deficits for decades. Now they complain that social security entitlements must be cut to keep within our means. | | |
| ▲ | ElevenLathe 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's really more that the (narrow, academic, theoretical) Laffer curve provided cover for the Reagan admin to cut taxes in the ways their backers wanted, but this is admittedly unproven AFAIK. But then there's the observable fact that the Reagan cuts weren't Laffer-optimal either (revenues went down, not up). It's not clear that there is a Laffer-optimal tax cut that can currently be made, but instead of making a case for that it has just become "centrist" dogma that lower taxes always increase growth and revenues, and are always optimal no matter the actual fiscal or economic situation. | | |
| ▲ | rayiner 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think the more interesting observation is that neither Clinton, nor Obama, nor Biden made any effort to roll back the biggest part of Reagan's tax cuts: reducing taxes on the middle class. That's quite remarkable, because that's the area where the U.S. diverges the most in tax policy from other western countries. |
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| ▲ | Hikikomori 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >As much as people may dislike Regan, his goal for reducing taxes on the wealthy was based upon the laffer curve. That changes everything, doesn't matter that it didn't work at all. | |
| ▲ | tstrimple 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > As much as people may dislike Regan, his goal for reducing taxes on the wealthy was based upon the laffer curve. If this were the case, revenue would have gone up after the tax cuts. They didn't. Receipts as share of GDP fell and the deficit tripled. The debt went from 25% of GDP to 40% of GDP during Reagan. We've never meaningfully been on the wrong side of the Laffer curve. It's basically just conservative propaganda at this point. As the other post mentioned, the strategy is and was Starve the Beast. We know this because that's what Reagan actually campaigned on. > "John Anderson tells us that first we've got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes. Well, if you've got a kid that's extravagant, you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance. Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker." | |
| ▲ | joquarky 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Now they complain that social security entitlements must be cut to keep within our means. That's the Starve the Beast strategy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast |
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