Chase Seliger
Mrs. Straub
Economics Insight
19 May 2016
Do we fund the U.S. Military too much?
The United States has the strongest military in the world, with about 2.5 million soldiers either already fighting or are waiting in reserves. Some people have strong thoughts on this topic as there are great opportunity costs that are at play here. For the 2015 Budget, the Department of Defense had a whopping 598.5 billion spending cap, just for the military. This takes up more than 54% of the total budget for the United States. That is a lot of money taken away from other things that the government could be funding, such as Healthcare, Education, etc.
The 2016 projected budget for the Department of Defense is 270 billion, which is a little less compared to 2015, but it still takes up 50% of the total spending budget. The other main worry of having such a large amount of money going towards defense is the fact that the United States is so far in debt. With the US diving deeper into the 17.8 trillion debt, people believe it is time to cut a lot of spending habits, such as the military. The real question here, is should they though? As many things seem to stir the pot more and more each day the other half of the population believes the military should continue to receive the amount they do and some believe they should get more. WIth such rivals of the US such as ISIS, North Korea, Russia, and China all building their military’s up greater as well, people believe we should be doing the same to make sure we remain number one throughout the world. Overall it comes down to a opinionated answer, and it’s a question that is going to remain on the fence, with many people wanting one thing and the other half wanting the other. So the question remains, should the government cut military spending?
Works Cited
"United States of America Military Strength." United States of America Military Strength. N.p., 2016. Web. 19 May 2016.
"The United States Spending 2015." National Priorities. National Priorities, 2 Mar. 2015. Web. 19 May 2016.
I don't even have to read this to know that we spend too much on military, however I am forced to read it. Based off knowledge I know beforehand, I know that the US spends the most on it's military in the world and is more than the next 3 below them in spending combined I'm pretty sure. Although I am not against having the stronger military in the world, I play Civilization, but we don't need to spend over half of our budget on our military. Reducing the spending by 5 to maybe 10 percent would leave more room for us to better our country in other aspects. We are years ahead of the world considering our military, so budget cuts in the military is not a very big deal considering the large gap we have over other countries and nations.
ReplyDeleteI would've liked to know where you stand on the topic. Weather you believe that we should cut down on military expenditures or not. Personally, I think we should cut down on military spending and redirect that revenue elsewhere such as, education or healthcare. The military is extremely important, but education and healthcare are of equal concern and yet a much greater amount of money is going to the military. The percent of government spending on the military compared to education and healthcare combined; there is a huge gap and I think we should work on closing that gap.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting topic and I can see how people would agree on both sides of the debate. Personally, I believe we should cut military spending. Like you mentioned, the US is already in a lot of debt, therefore if we can save money in anyway, I believe we should. The military already takes up so much of the budget, therefore I don't see the harm in cutting some of their money supply to lower our debt.
ReplyDeleteReally insightful piece! I had no idea how we actually spend on military funding. Eye opening, seeing that the government spends less money on education then military funds. But it makes a lot of sense that we're spending so much more on military funding because after the unfortunate series of terrorist attacks on our countries troops, we would have to spend more to benefit and keep those troops living by intimidating our enemy with threatening infantry. But maybe we could the spending on the military slightly so we can focus on other issues our nation is continuously facing.
ReplyDeleteThat question is out and about on whether or not we spend too much money on the military. And in my opinion, I think we do. I think we could take more money out of the military and give it to areas were we need it more. Which is healthcare, education, and things like that. The military is getting more than enough money to fund their area, and sometimes we hear things that the are spending their money on, such as tanks and weapons that are unneeded for the amount of money they are going for. Yes our military is very important, I agree, but so is the necessities us citizens need.
ReplyDeleteThis is a heavily discussed topic in the US because, since there’s no large wars occurring, we feel as though it is unnecessary to have such a large budget. Though this is a good point, the budget doesn’t only buy new fancy weapons and technology, it also trains and recruits new soldiers to strengthen our military and allow the US to be prepared for any future issues.
ReplyDeleteThis is a heavily discussed topic in the US because, since there’s no large wars occurring, we feel as though it is unnecessary to have such a large budget. Though this is a good point, the budget doesn’t only buy new fancy weapons and technology, it also trains and recruits new soldiers to strengthen our military and allow the US to be prepared for any future issues.
ReplyDeleteIt is a known fact that the U.S. military is the largest in the world, with total spending exceeding many country’s spending combined. But I believe a new question arises in the modern age: is it better to spend on a large quantity or a high quality of military resources? I say this because while we may spend more than any other country on things like soldiers, guns, and ammo, new technology is going to be what wins future conflicts. These other countries are developing this technology at a competitive pace with the U.S., technology that could change the balance of world power. So I agree that it comes down to an opinionated question, and that question should be: what will keep us safe?
ReplyDeleteAlthough the opportunity cost of military spending, Health Care/Education or other areas of spending, seems very high it is worth it. Without a strong military, the United States would not be as large of a super power as it is. A decrease in military spending, decreases the amount of weapons or training we can provide our troops, and the number of soldiers we can have. With less soldiers and security, our liberties such as Education and Health Care are in jeopardy, making the large amount of the budget dedicated to military spending worth it.
ReplyDeleteWhile “if the government is spending too much on the military” comes down to opinion, I think it’s safe to say with how advanced our military is already, that we do not need hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars going to defense. Although it’s important to maintain an image of security in our nation’s defense, we can still improve the military with a smaller percentage of funding. Even cutting their budget in half to 25%, the military would still have over $300 billion dollars; that way when soldiers come home, they’re have better benefits, increase education opportunities, and better public services once the budget is more evened out to support people on the homefront too.
ReplyDeleteIn reality, no matter what is happening in the world we should never give one sector over 50% of our funding. It's absurd, really. Right now, everyone assumes we need to have more and more military to remain number 1, like you stated, but really why aren’t other countries worried the same way? We have been number 1 for decades now. We’ve shown people that we are powerful, which is why we have problems with ISIS and North Korea. They see us as threats. While we aren’t bombing them 24/7 they still know we are on top and if they are able to dethrone us, it will send the world into chaos. Another thing is that Russia, China and the US basically hate one another, which is well known, but with the nuclear threats from North Korea, all three of us have stepped up and said something about it. ISIS doesn’t only threaten the United States, they have attacked tons of European countries, including large scale attacks on Russian soil. The three most powerful countries in the world are willing to fight against common enemies, which makes building up a military almost pointless. If we really wanted to help the country, we would throw a ton of money into education, because while we may be ranked #1 in Military power, we are ranked much lower when it comes to intelligence.
ReplyDeleteGreat facts and statistics. I feel as we need to fund the military a lot but not as much as we have. The military has a lot of stuff they don't even need to use such as nuclear bombs. If we cut some out of the military it will open new windows for other departments that could still help the military. Such as Science they could come up with a new chemical that could help our military out greatly. We don't use all those 2.5 million solders anyway, so more could go to education and could help them with their decisions on going to the military or wanting more school. There is a great opportunity cost if this happens we could not have the top military in the world which is highly doubtable because we are so far ahead. We could cut military by a little bit to help our economy back on the home front. We could have a healthier America if we spend less on military.
ReplyDeleteIt is scary to think that while the US and its enemies builds up their military that we are also building a lot of tensions. If the US stops spending money, will the rivals stop too? Or will they take advantage and keep building to attack? The money is building up more and more problems. If spending was cut everywhere, more countries would be happy and would prosper more. I guess in the end it really is down to weighing out what matters more to someone, and that is either keep funding National Defense for what could not even be a war for many years to come, or put that money towards other things like health and education.
ReplyDeleteI feel like although military spending accounts for a high percent of our national spending it is for the safety of the citizens of our country. And as for spending more on Healthcare, that wouldn’t be bad but we do already spend a lot on that as well, they spend the second largest amount of money on Healthcare. Cutting military spending by a little won't do much harm and I feel like that would be fine but cutting any large chunk of military spending doesn't seem like a good idea. Maybe we should try to find a way to make higher quality products so they don't have to produce as much. Taking a stand one way or another might have helped your essay a bit but overall very insightful, really eye opening to read!
ReplyDeleteThe other world governments invest in military because America does so excessively. It's a drain on other programs like education and agriculture, and in the end, its not something that is always useful. There haven't been that many major wars and other countries may see America's military presence as a threat instead of it being comforting.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the military spending is a lot, and it should be, because you never know when something is going to happen. I feel that it shouldn’t be 50% of the budget though. I think we should do about 35% of the budget to military spending, because we could use the other 15% to help pay off our national debt. Yes it’s important to have protection in case something happens, but I think that we have more than enough military equipment/ people that we would be fine.
ReplyDeleteThe amount of money the US puts into the military is too high. We outspend the next 7 closest countries combined for our military. The amount we spend on military takes money away from our education systems and our healthcare systems. The reason other countries are passing us in educational standards is because we don't fund those programs enough. If we cut our military spending, the country will benefit as a whole. Because of the large amount we spend already, cutting the military defense spending will still leave us with the most funded military in the world. While safety is important, we have enough safety already. There are bigger problems in America now than our military.
ReplyDeleteThe military is certainly important, but not enough so to demand over 50% of our budget. Most of this money spent on the military is going places it's not even needed, such as the USAF replacing the A-10 Thunderbolt II with the F-35. I understand the draw of the F-35 as a multirole aircraft, and the A-10 is old, but there's not a better CAS (Close Air Support) aircraft out there, and the money saved just by continuing to use the A-10 alone is tremendous, and there's plenty more to be saved in a similar manner with some other things that don't really need replacing.
ReplyDeleteIt is very important that we keep a strong military, but do we really need 54% of the budget to go towards that? I believe we do. The United States has a lot of enemies, and to stay on top of the world with the military will help to kind of fend off the enemies. We have THE biggest stick. The only problem with the budget for military, is that it's so inefficient. There are probably quite a few things that could be cut from the military budget, and used towards other things; whether it's defense related or not.
ReplyDeleteI understand why so much of America's total budget goes to the military but 54% is a little excessive. It is important to have a strong military protecting our country, but we are so far in debt that we should cut some of the spendings to maybe just 45%. By budgeting our finances better we can give more money to education and help improve our public school system.
ReplyDeleteAlthough everyone needs money in their military to be safe from everything on the outside I feel as if 50% is too much and if it was cut it could go into other sectors that have maybe not been getting the attention they need due to such a large amount of money going into the Military.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy to think about how much the United States and other countries build up their military. I personally think we spend way too much money on our military because the money could be put to better use but I would have been nice to hear your perspective. While military is important some countries could see our huge military as a threat and start to build up their military and at what point would we stop? This could end up being like the cold war; accumulation of weapons but no actual fighting and take years and years to official end.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say that our military needs to maintain a strong military but I believe that there is too much military. There has been discussion about whether or not the military has enough money or if they need more or if they need less. The fact is, is that there are other important categories that need help and money. For instance healthcare and education are the main ones I think of. Without healthcare and education our economy and our world wouldn't be where we are today. So I believe that there is too much money going to the military and not enough money going to the other essential categories citizens need, like healthcare and education. I agree that our military is important but not so important that it takes up half or more than half our spending as a government.
ReplyDeleteThe Unites States Military does take up a lot of the budget but I believe that it should in order to remain the powerful nation that we are. However there is room to make cuts, the military being over half the budget to me is too much and could go towards healthcare and education as suggested in the post. I think that overall, yes we could make some slight cuts in the military's budget but still leave enough to ensure that we have a strong military.
ReplyDeleteI feel that America have this need to have all the power so little to no one can touch our country. We spend excessive amounts of money on military, even though it’s the strongest one by a long stretch. I also feel that we want to intimidate people with our numbers so no other country would even think to attack us in any manner. Having 54% of the budget strictly going to military is once again excessive and could be put towards things that are a little starving of some money; healthcare, education, and transportation.
ReplyDeleteYou can never pay too much for the security of our citizens. Even though we spend more than 500 billion it is worth every penny. If people would really watch the news and see what is happening in our world then they might think differently. Look at all the terrorist attacks happening right in our homeland. Our government should not be giving all these programs to people. If they want money they should have to work for it not just live off the government. If we cut our spending on our military and homeland security outside countries will see that as a weakness. People open your eyes and just look at whats going on, if we cut our spending yes we will have more money but the terrorists will just keep coming and killing.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that there should be cuts on military spending. Sure it may seem bad to the public because the amount of money that goes into the military is so much for a single person. Now if the world would just stop spending money on their own military and we all just become happy friends then maybe we would be alright cutting spending, but as well all know that is just not going to happy anytime soon. People want more and more power and can never get enough of it, and there will always be someone who disagrees with who's at the head of it all so conflict will always be there!
ReplyDeleteWhether the federal government have been contributing too much money to the military or not is a question I been asking myself for a while now. Personally, I think so. There are problems such food insecurity, excessive tuition fees among other issues that can be more easily addressed if the government would agree to put more funding into other things.
ReplyDeleteThe amount spent on the military is definitely unnecessary and inefficient for our economic and political growth. We haven't been fighting a single enemy besides ISIS since WWII, and ISIL wouldn't be as big of an issue as it is if we would cooperate with some of the other countries we have poor standing with. After WWII, we've focused solely on our own agenda: fighting communism to the point where we stomped out rebellions against cruel dictators we put into power, spending massive amounts of money in the space/arms race against the Soviet Union, and deteriorating our own standing amongst the other 190+ countries around the globe. We tend to neglect our own faults in worldly events, and ignoring the bigger picture. If we focused on working with the enemy instead of trying to show who has the biggest guns, we could be a hundred years ahead of where we are now. We would no longer be stuggling with the things we struggle with now, and we would be fighting smaller threats. The American dream used to stand for freedom and liberty, but looking at our actions in the last several millennia I'm not too sure. Even taking small steps back to what we used to stand for would be monumental. But until we can do that, we'll be wasting money on a pointless show and tell.
ReplyDeleteIt is stunning to see how much money the government spends just on the military alone. I agree it is critical to have a strong military; in today's society, you never know what is going to happen so it's better to be safe than sorry. However, I will acknowledge the fact that the public school system is lacking. The US is falling behind other countries when it comes to education and we need to step it up if Americans are going to compete in the long-run. This is a difficult issue to address but clearly there needs to be some compromising.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting topic to talk about considering we have the strongest military in the world like you said of 2.5 million soldiers. By spending 598.5 billion a year on building our defensive line which takes up 54% of our total budget is ridiculous. It's crazy to see how we have been allocating our money in which we could be spending otherwise such as poverty, education, roads, and building up our countries before the lines. Yes the lines are an important and key topic to talk about and i'm not saying fade it all away. But by reducing that amount a little bit could end up digging ourselves out of debt as well as increase other programs.
ReplyDeleteSince we are currently not in a war I believe that it would be reasonable to decreasing the spending on the military. While it is important to worry about the future, we also need to focus on the present and spend money on the most urgent issues. The decrease in spending on the military could potentially decrease the amount of troops because there would be less money to support them. Although the number of men in an army was important years ago, many wars are now fought with more technology than man power. The decrease in troops may allow for the military to increase there knowledge of technology for any possible threats. The advancement in technology would increase the demand of educated individuals that could handle the science and math that goes into the process. This could eventually lead to increases in the budget for education to support the fast changing world.
ReplyDeleteI believe the current military budget should stay where it is now. It is important to stay the most militarily advanced state in the world and to have a military deterrent against any foreign, or domestic, attack. Although there are some that argue that the amount of money fed into defense should decrease, if it were to decrease, I believe that the money that should be used for veteran affairs should increase. There are thousands of veterans that experience PTSD in some form and have little healthcare options as of now.
ReplyDeleteCool topic to talk about here. I believe that the United States spends way to much money on it's military. We have no enemies accept for ISIS but they are a very little threat and people who talk about how we should get ready to fight Russia and China are not thinking straight. Russia military spending is very weak compared to us and China would not start a war with a major country that buys there goods. I guess I should mention North Korea to but if you look at all communist country's they fall apart with in, I image North Korea will be the same. Overall the military budget should be reduced and should be forced on improving our education and all that good stuff.
ReplyDeleteYes-- we should cut military spending. We are not in a war right now, and our army is strong enough as it is. We don't need to upgrade or fortify our military until something happens that pushes us into war. All of that funding could go towards something more presently useful--like education and health care. Military spending shouldn't be over half of the budget--it shouldn't even be a third. The more money we put towards other areas of the country, the more stable the country will be.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the military is getting more than half of the budget and can be reduced a little bit, but the military is still really important and needs money so they can get fire power and ammo for that fire power. Without the military, our country probably wouldn't exist like it does now because there have been many times in history where we could've easily been destroyed if it wasn't for the military. But because we aren't at war right now and we don't necessarily need the fire power at this exact moment, the spending could go down a little bit, but still have enough to pay for the advances in technology and all of those things.
ReplyDeleteI think since we are currently not in a war it would make sense to cut some military spending and not have it at 50% of our total budget. But for the future say like if ISIS got stronger,bigger and had more money, I could see us spending more and more money to make sure that we can act fast if they were to attack us. I'd say that we do spend a lot of money and could probably cut some of it out of the military to put towards health and education and when a war comes or we get attacked raise the money for spending on military.
ReplyDeleteI understand why so much of America's total budget goes to the military but 54% is a little excessive, even though our enemies are continuing to build up their armies as well . It is important to have a strong military protecting our country and that our citizens feel safe, however the US is beginning to have a major problem with the deficit and debt. So what I think would be the smartest move is try to find a happy medium, so we can spend more of our money on other programs and help shrink the deficit. Also while we are not at war we could cut the military spending and then start to spend more again when war is looming right around the corner. So then we would still have the most powerful military on earth and further develop other programs and shrink the deficit.
ReplyDeleteI say we should cut spending but not so much that there isn't enough to maintain our military, because we do have a lot of enemies, so we can't just ignore that. I'd say around 40-45%, because that is still a reasonable amount, and it allows us to put into other important areas. Overall, I think cutting spending by a small percent will allow us to maintain our military, while allowing us to focus more on other issues.
ReplyDeleteWe should definitely cut our spending but just a little because although we do have great threats around the world we are still far ahead of them in equipment and heavy artillery along with a great population. If we can find a nice balance and just cut the spending just enough just to help the economy more then people could be more satisfied with that. But cutting the spending on the Military would be ideal because we a lot of other problems we need to tackle.
ReplyDeleteThis truly is a difficult topic, as both pro-military and anti-military sides have strong arguments for their case. The United States needs to maintain its strong military, but at the same time there are so many other things that the military budget could be used for such as poverty and education. It would have been interesting if you would have analyzed the impact that a decrease in military budget would have on those other aspects that we could improve in our country. Overall, I thought your post was compelling and interesting, and your economic terminology was solid. Nice job!
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ReplyDeleteI think that the military funding is a very important part of the well being of our country. With all of the recent attacks occurring, the military has helped in keeping our country safe. Without a good military with weapons and training, it risks the assurance of our safety. This would mean that we wouldn't have as much of a chance to have all of these other things in the pie chart that come along with freedom. Overall, even though it is a high opportunity cost of paying for the military more than anything else, it should continue being funded as is so our country can remain safe.
ReplyDeleteYes I do believe we fund the military too much. They have more than enough weapons that they are not using and even though military is important for the protection of our country it is not more important than the health, wellbeing and education of our country. While i think that the military is funded too much money i still believe they need a way of support so cutting it alot is not the best way to go. I think that by cutting spending just a little and getting what they need funded approved before doing or buying it we can adjust the spending to a better amount.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking at test scores and education, the United States is slacking compared to other countries. It makes me sick to think about how much US spends on Military. This money needs to go into other areas such as education. The percentage should decrease to maybe 40 or 45 percent, and we should put this money into either fixing our national debt, public schools, or it should be used to help poor cities across the United States. If we decrease this spending we could also put that money towards helping those who are living in poverty, or maybe to helping injured veterans. Well written controversial post!
ReplyDeleteIt's a good question. Military spending is important, but how do we judge how much is necessary? It may be called into question if we need to build the army quite so much to face our current enemies, but we also don't know what enemies we will be facing tomorrow. There are definitely other areas that need the money. It's difficult to call just how much of the military spending to cut if that's a route we decide to take. What's the opportunity cost?
ReplyDeleteKelin Olson