Interesting Questions

1. How come you limit the question to "US"?

1a) Is this showing a goal to keep US behind all other developed nations in many fields research?
1b) Due to shrinking budgets America, who was 1st before 1997, is now listed 10th. Should we stop these downhill paces?

When 70% of the total US budget is spent on the military but budget cuts are made in the areas that take up 16% of the total, there is something seriously wrong in Washington.

The US needs to guard its own borders and stop invading other countries. There should be no bases overseas. None.

The federal government puts military spending at 17-20% of the budget. It's not even close to 70%.

The pie chart I saw had military spending at 70 and welfare at 16. This was a few years ago, granted, but it was there...And I don't trust what the federal government says. This was an independent source I got it from. But whatever...it was at 70. It may not be anymore.

I just spent 5 minutes at a search engine and got everything from 17-20%, up to 54%.
I think part of the discrepancy is how the question is worded. If you look at military spending, one site had the past military expenses at 18%.
The 17-20% figures are just for current military spending.

I'm sure it would take a little more time to get to the accurate percentage of defense spending v. military spending. Not many of us will take the time. I know I'm not.

I always heard those 70% numbers as well but when I checked it myself on the gvnmnt site it was close to the 17-20% figure. A government has so many fixed expenditures, the budget doesn't change that much from year to year. It is hard to cut back on vital services and the gvnmnt spends a lot on its own organisation as well. The election debates about budgets are operating on the margin for change only. You don't really get to hear the big picture when you listen to those kinds of debates.

Our country desperately needs an effective leader. A leader who is not afraid to make the tough choices necessary to lead our country both domestically AND GLOBALLY in the right direction!

The leader who makes the tough choices is tossed out of office the next election.
All our governors have talked about their education goals, but one had the courage to test teachers. The backlash was horrible. You'd think teachers would want a standard of ability. Teachers from certain colleges failed the test in higher numbers. They were almost all clustered together in a few schools. The governor lost the next election by a real landslide.

I am dreading having to pay for college already...ugh..

Questions that I hope will be answered some time soon.

At one time we did need the overseas bases. Now that the world situation has changed, we probably don't need so many. But there may be treaties and commitments to other nations that we maintain some bases in their countries. We really should be able to shut down the majority of overseas bases and bring our troops home. We would not be the first nation to self destruct by overextending ourselves militarily.

There are a lot of stateside bases which have no particular purpose and should be closed. However, military bases are a major source of pork for politicians and they will fight like cornered wolves to keep those in their districts. Now would be a bad time to close any bases since there's already way too much unemployment. Base closures are devastating to local economies. It's not just the base but all the local support services which lose. After our nation recovers financially would be the time to look at closures.

Affordable college educations are extremely important for upward mobility. If all we want is a small ruling class and a large mass of very poor people for uneducated labor, then we would want to price education high to keep it exclusive for the wealthy. After WWII, we had the GI bill which opened up the opportunity for a college education for a great many people. That lead to a huge boom in upward mobility and created a large middle class and enormous prosperity for the nation along with amazing technological advances. It made us a force to be reckoned with and we became world leaders. Without a large pool of highly educated people, there is nowhere to go but down. We have already started on that path but it isn't too late to reverse our direction.

As of 2010, the United States had 143 military bases here in the US. I looked it up. A lot have closed in the last 10 yrs.

I think it's 440 if you count things like proving grounds etc...but they aren't bases.

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interesting questions
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To anyone who is not a US citizen these questions are really ..odd. Only an American would consider whether 700 overseas military bases for any country would be "too much" or "not enough". America needs that much military because it does that much economic harm to the world. America's military power is leveraged to further it's economical goals. Every political goal is an economic goal in disguise. America messes with governments everywhere in proportion to its economic interests in the country or region. Rarely will you find a real threat to the "free world". There are no real threats to America. And the threats that exist, like 9/11, have been the result of US policies worldwide. The result of messing with every nation in order to make more money. The result of putting your foot inside every door. America's empire is founded on the principle of 'fixing' the world in its own image so that foreign policy is beneficial to American interests. That's why it needs such a big military. It is part of the foreign policy strategy.

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