I mean, it costs a LOT

The other superpowers in the world are Russia, a corrupt and very new democracy and China, a communist country. The US is by no means without corruption, but you will find more freedom here than you ever will in the other two countries. I think a large defense budget is necessary to maintain our political strength in the world. I'd rather see savings in other places, but there is a lot of waste in the defense budget too that could be trimmed down. Take the F-35 for example, sure, it's a phenomenal weapon of war but the development of it was plagued with all kinds of problems and the production cost is insane for one unit of up to $122 million. Just cut out one plane production, and let's see what that money can do to fix all the potholes in SC roads. That is 10% of our state's direct maintenance budget. So yeah i'm with you, but defense is a huge part of our national security.

Agree wholeheartedly. I wouldn't say let the feds manage it, but the funds be made available to states to use for infrastructure. But then theres a whole other bunch of issues with that too. I was just trying to answer the question as it was posed, but maybe you're right, maybe it should be a different question altogether.

Oh wow, that technically closed this whole discussion before it even started

nah, just my thoughts! what would you propose?

I don't really know! You explained it in a very sensible way, I can agree on almost everything. (P.S. Instead of developing insane planes, they should've used the money to fix plotholes)

Potholes not plotholes

Oh yeah... Well, plotholes suck too

Indeed. Congratulations on 100k

Thanks

You're welcome

Defense contractors make huge profits. A portion of those profits go back to the congressmen and women who propose and vote for big defense budgets and new spending. Some goes to their reelection campaign accounts, some goes quietly into their pockets. Reigning in defense spending to support more urgent needs will be difficult until there are presidents who are committed to the goal.

The kid asked about weapons. I was answering his questions. But since you bring it up, the defense allotment is the largest and most outrageously oversized portion of the federal budget. If we want to pay down the deficit, or reduce taxes, or find money to do other things, that's the place to look.

LOL. I fail to understand. One of the entertaining things about this site is the number of people who assume that they're more knowledgeable and wise than the other users they chat with. But then the things you say reveal your patterns of thinking to be illogical, one-dimensional, and stale. I don't mean to be insulting. If you were exposed to some good training, you could make good and useful contributions to these conversations. Right now, you have a reputation for being a bullying troll because that's the persona you've adopted. You're smart. Why don't you use it to check yourself and plan a little self improvement? At least stop bullying the kids on this site.

I'm going to ignore you now, Timber1972. Athough I think you can be saved, I'm not looking for a project right now. Feel free to explain this to me in another extended reply ( :

To your point, though, there are certainly other portions of the federal budget that could stand a lot of trimming. Or much better management of use.

See? that was a good response.

If we ever use the weapons we won’t ever have to worry about infrastructure again. Simple eh?