You know, it occurs to me now, isn't it funny, 'you can't cut defense because those are jobs!'

[closeupready]

So in other words, these pukes in defense industry districts tell us we need to cut spending, just not spending that benefits their constituents and campaign donors. Gotta love that type of logic where everyone else needs to pay, and you don't. Meanwhile, we are told that if we cut taxes, this will create jobs. We did that, and unemployment is still rising.

Why does anyone listen to them when they are so clearly incompetent on how to help run an economy?

[Bryn]

1. Yep! To force our young people into military to die for the Elite.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. And, kill for the elite.

[closeupready]

4. It's really criminal, that.

:mad:

[mike_c]

2. their entire focus in on their own profits or those of their puppet masters...

...which they mistake for "the economy."

[closeupready]

5. Yeah, exactly.

If you watch PBS, there was last week a program on simians, such as chimps or bonobos, and scientists have found that bonobos are very protective and defensive of their communities, even bonobos with which they are unacquainted, and it occurred to me, this is proof positive of the lie that forms the basis of Ayn Rand's shitty 'philosophy' about "me-first, me-always, you-fuck-off-and-die".

[polichick]

6. Absolutely - and not just Republicans.

[izquierdista]

7. And fine jobs they are

I used to have one of those defense industry jobs. All the time I wondered if I was doing something useful -- nope, not useful at all. At the same time, jobs in alternative energy or environmental remediation were hard to come by. The market in its infinite wisdom had decided that the demand for blowing shit up was much higher than the demand for a sustainable environment with a clean source of energy.

[RKP5637]

8. Henry Kissinger quote:

"Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy."

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. Henderson!

[Hydra]

10. As if we needed proof

The gov't creates jobs, jobs they don't want their friends to lose.

Why don't we scrap those jobs and give all of them as tax cuts? That should work based on the myth, right?

[rurallib]

11. And there is a contractor in every single congressional district

which, if closed would cause a huge outcry.
Not sure if that still holds, but it did at one time. We have two or three in our district.

I wonder why 1/2 that money couldn't be reassigned to renewable energy research. Then we wouldn't need as much army to steal resources.

[Ozymanithrax]

14. Government contractros are not government jobs...

They are civilian companies that employ mostly American civilians.

[Ozymanithrax]

12. You can cut defense as long as you remember that those are jobs...

and if you cut them you have to do something to replace those jobs you took away or you make the economy worse. If you cut it just to cut the deficit and pay back money, then you dump those people into unemployment.

Republicans have gone the route of cutting police, fireman, teachers, and many other government jobs. They did it without considering what dumping hundreds of thousands of government workers would do to the economy.

The Department of Defense is the largest employer in the United States. Cutting Defense will cut jobs. What job programs do you create with the savings so that the lousy job market isn't just made worse?

Long Term, the US must change its foreign policy and cut DOD down to size. But that will take time so that the economy can handle the massive shift in national priorities from empire to citizens.

[robinlynne]

13. Ask Obama. He calls it bi-partisanship.

[robinlynne]

15. Seems to me all the soldiers could come home. they could help distribute

food to the poor, rebuild cities and towns destroyed by flooding and fires, set up first aid clinics for basic care, so people wouldn't go the emergency room for a cold. So many ways they could keep their salaries and do things which would make the country better.
in other words, public jobs are good for the economy. And the citizens, and the people in the jobs. and their families....
As for the contractors, to hell with them. I saw on the news last week that 75% of military budgets go over. 205 go over y more than 50% of the approved budget. Betchas those are outsourced to private contractors. oh yes, and 80% had no bidding.