“I’ll reiterate: the armed forces have a legitimate and expressly constitutionally sanctioned role.”
I think with but a cursory examination of history you’ll see that our military has strayed pretty far from the constitutional role envisioned by our forefathers. It is begging to be cut.
“For Rand Paul to talk about military “wastefulness” and liberal social programs and Marxist wealth redistribution in the same breath shows he is appallingly stupid and uninformed, and that the good people of Kentucky may have made a mistake. “
Military spending is not sacred. It is money taken from taxpayers (or our taxpayers grandchildren, lately) so as little as possible should be spent to fulfill it’s constitutional role and necessary functions to defend the USA. I submit that $600B is beyond excessive for what we need in military spending.
That we have a myriad of other social spending begging to be slashed or eliminated is no reason to leave military untouched.
We are clearly wasting time, lives, and money in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We are wasting even more money on bailouts, and financial shenanigans to prop up non-functioning institutions.
We are wasting as much on social programs that everyone is afraid to cut.
They all must be cut - we need to cut a trillion dollars from our budget. The military will be a part, perhaps a big part of that, and anyone who refuses to recognize that is crazier than a libertarian dopehead.
I work for a defense contractor and the defense budget could and probably should be cut, even though it might eventually result in the termination of my job. IIRC, the U.S. spends more on military expenditures than the rest of the world combined. I would think that someone in this country is competent enough to ensure our security with less money.