Step I: Provide widespread militia type training to anyone who is interested. Assign states with the responsibility of loosely coordinating such groups. Maybe also tax deduction for guns.
Step II: Virtually defund the military. Maintain ballistic missile submarines, some modest expeditionary force. Basically make it impossible to invade another country without instituting a draft.
Step III: Use the savings to invest in infrastructure, maybe first communication systems to help the defensive militia, maybe roads to allow for better mobilization, maybe computer security systems, etc.
Result: If we want to project force, we have to do it economically. Presidents can't just get re-elected by going to war. We stop slaughtering hundreds of thousands of third-world residents in the name of liberating them.
2 comments:
Radically reducing the military budget appears to me to be all that's left to us, that's at all realistic.
But of course it only kicks the can down the road--with more funds the government will continue to provide me crappy, unwanted services until all *that* money (and more) is used up. Two generations hence they will be in our current predicament without a military budget to gut.
I admire your proposal.
Reducing the military budget would most definitely be a good start, but as Matt precisely pointed out, it won't fix the long-run problem. That's ALL about the excess inflation in healthcare. By 2030, Medicare alone will be consuming >10% of GDP. Fix that, and the rest of the budget can be brought under control without too much difficulty. Also, this REQUIRES allowing the Bush Tax Cuts to expire: they will bankrupt the country over time.
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