The Biden (interim) Dictator

[kim carnes]

I think they should just cancel what they are going to cancel and move on. The current policy is bonkers because if they are not going to cancel anything then they are setting a lot of people up for failure when they make people pay again.

How does not collecting interest for 2+ years set people up for failure… tf are you talking about kk?

[sonofdaxjones]

I just want to take a moment away from student debt cancellation and congratulate all of #neoconGe.

Your beloved military industrial complex is going to get about an $813 billion dollar budget.   This of course doesn't include special appropriations for things like perpetuating forever war between Russia and the Ukraine (as the U.S. shows virtually no signs at trying to effort towards a diplomatic solution).    Amusingly, derps on both sides of the aisle want to jack this up even more because of the got damn Putinflation. 

Now keep in mind, these are the same derps who told us that the Afghan army was going to hold the line.    These are the same derps who told us that Russia was going to overrun Ukraine in 36 days.    Thus, idiot like Milley get up there and starts talking about, GASP a "multi-polar" world that includes the prowess of the Russian military, and thus, the United States must budget accordingly to not only take on the Chinese, but the "vaunted" Russians as well.     It has to feel good for #neoconGe knowing that people like Milley pine for the days of the U.S. hegemone.   

Just 10% of that budget . . . sure does makes a nice dent in (targeted) student loan debt. 

[LickNeckey]

I am all for reduction of military spending!

COMMON GROUND!

[sys]

doesn't seem to me like a good time to reduce the military budget.

[MakeItRain]

doesn't seem to me like a good time to reduce the military budget.

Why the eff not? We aren't doing crap and won't do crap anytime in the foreseeable future.

[Kat Kid]

I think they should just cancel what they are going to cancel and move on. The current policy is bonkers because if they are not going to cancel anything then they are setting a lot of people up for failure when they make people pay again.

How does not collecting interest for 2+ years set people up for failure… tf are you talking about kk?

The haphazard nature of the extensions and the fact that if people do not know when they are turned back on or if they have changed banking info then they are delinquent when this turns back on at some as yet undeclared date.

It isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it is a pretty big bug.

[yoga-like_abana]

I think they should just cancel what they are going to cancel and move on. The current policy is bonkers because if they are not going to cancel anything then they are setting a lot of people up for failure when they make people pay again.

How does not collecting interest for 2+ years set people up for failure… tf are you talking about kk?

The haphazard nature of the extensions and the fact that if people do not know when they are turned back on or if they have changed banking info then they are delinquent when this turns back on at some as yet undeclared date.

It isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it is a pretty big bug.

This is a very big crap or get off the pot in my opinon. If they can't figure out what they want to do by August who knows when/if they will.

[Kat Kid]

yes it is the uncertainty for all parties that contributes to it being bad.

[LickNeckey]

doesn't seem to me like a good time to reduce the military budget.

a little belt tightening surely wouldn't hurt

[sonofdaxjones]

Defense budget stats 2016:  Brought to you by LickNecky

[catastrophe]

doesn't seem to me like a good time to reduce the military budget.

a little belt tightening surely wouldn't hurt

I always thought it was worth cutting some of our budget, but I also thought an invasion on the scale of Russia/Ukraine was almost unimaginable these days. On the one hand it’s a little crazy how much we spend on “defense” despite probably being one of the hardest nations to reach for most armies that pose a legitimate threat.

On the other hand, I appreciate that the US’s status as a world power revolves in no small part around our military might. So “defense” is just one thing we’re actually spending money on.

[sonofdaxjones]

Amazing

[LickNeckey]

Defense budget stats 2016:  Brought to you by LickNecky

[LickNeckey]

fair criticism of the dated nature of my information but the proportional shares of expenditure have really not changed much

[sonofdaxjones]

Lick it's been fascinating watching the public face of your movement devolve from one that used to lose their crap about the defense budget (Republican presidents only) to one that now openly advocates for more defense spending and a draconian intelligence state.

 

[Rage Against the McKee]

Maybe we should let Finland join NATO and see how Russia responds before cutting defense spending. We do spend way too much, though. No reason we should spend just as much when we aren't in a major conflict as we would if we were in a world war.

[LickNeckey]

Lick it's been fascinating watching the public face of your movement devolve from one that used to lose their crap about the defense budget (Republican presidents only) to one that now openly advocates for more defense spending and a draconian intelligence state.

 

it really has been interesting and a change i do not support

i would assume that polling data indicates that americans love spending a eff ton on "security"

Trump was very succesful in convincing rubes that he made the miliatry "great again"

[sys]

doesn't seem to me like a good time to reduce the military budget.

Why the eff not? We aren't doing crap and won't do crap anytime in the foreseeable future.

i'm going to address this question and lick's comment separately as that seems the clearest way to organize my comments, but of course, they're interrelated.

why not reduce now - 1.  we've transferred a fair bit of materiel to ukraine and presumably will continue to do so.  we need to replenish that,  2.  we're being given the opportunity to observe that we can advance our interests without having to use our own army by serving as an armory to willing and motivated forces with which we share the same goals and we should expand our capacity to arm democracies of the world in their hours of need, and 3.  we're currently being presented with the most up to date information available on what weaponry works against peer or near peer armies and what doesn't and we should take the opportunity to update our own forces accordingly.  i saw an opinion on twitter that we should be in no hurry to do so and instead should take the time to carefully evaluate the information gathered and how it relates to our own forces and vulnerabilities, and i think that makes a lot of sense, but the realities of the budgeting process are that you don't easily reduce spending now and expand later.  there's enormous inertia.  so given that i think we will have needs in the near future, reducing now would be counterproductive.

[sys]

a little belt tightening surely wouldn't hurt

i find these critiques uninformative and wrongheaded.  they strike me as little more than "that seems like a lot" with no consideration of the objectives and needs for which we fund the strongest military in the world.

as someone mentioned, our military is not designed simply to defend america from foreign invasion, it's designed to project force across the world, in multiple areas simultaneously.  of course that requires more spending than any other country in the world, no other country is funding a military with that goal!  so the idea that we should just lop off 10% or whatever because our budget is big just seems purely wrongminded.  like, i have no idea if we need to spend 3, 4 or 5% of gdp to accomplish those goals and i suspect that no one arguing for cutting the military budget does either, but the notion that we can compare to what other countries are spending as a meaningful gauge doesn't make any sense.  so, if you want to argue that we should reduce our military by like 80% and be prepared to simply defend against a north american invasion and not have the capacity to project force outside of our borders, then fine, make that argument.  but the idea that we can take a haircut and still field an army that is unquestionably superior to any other on earth, anywhere on earth - that, i think is probably incorrect.  one lesson that i think i'm learning from the ukrainian invasion is that when it comes to an army, you do kinda get what you pay for.  and another is that having an overwhelming advantage on day 1 of any conflict is a lot more advantageous and probably cheaper overall than just maintaining a slight advantage that you hope will prevail over the course of a long conflict.

[sys]

a decent (no paywall) argument for the defense budget (really more an argument for not listening to the rote calls to cut it).

https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1511989399059251211

[chum1]

our military is not designed simply to defend america from foreign invasion, it's designed to project force across the world

Just to be clear, projecting force across the world should also help defend from foreign invasion (if done correctly). If you like the former, you should probably also like the latter.

[star seed 7]

We aren't worried about foreign invasion, no one except the US has the navy or Air Force needed to transport troops/supplies/other equipment across oceans in the numbers required. I think this still applies even if the entire world decided to join forces against the US.

[LickNeckey]

doesn't seem to me like a good time to reduce the military budget.

Why the eff not? We aren't doing crap and won't do crap anytime in the foreseeable future.

i'm going to address this question and lick's comment separately as that seems the clearest way to organize my comments, but of course, they're interrelated.

why not reduce now - 1.  we've transferred a fair bit of materiel to ukraine and presumably will continue to do so.  we need to replenish that,  2.  we're being given the opportunity to observe that we can advance our interests without having to use our own army by serving as an armory to willing and motivated forces with which we share the same goals and we should expand our capacity to arm democracies of the world in their hours of need, and 3.  we're currently being presented with the most up to date information available on what weaponry works against peer or near peer armies and what doesn't and we should take the opportunity to update our own forces accordingly.  i saw an opinion on twitter that we should be in no hurry to do so and instead should take the time to carefully evaluate the information gathered and how it relates to our own forces and vulnerabilities, and i think that makes a lot of sense, but the realities of the budgeting process are that you don't easily reduce spending now and expand later.  there's enormous inertia.  so given that i think we will have needs in the near future, reducing now would be counterproductive.

1.

a little belt tightening surely wouldn't hurt

i find these critiques uninformative and wrongheaded.  they strike me as little more than "that seems like a lot" with no consideration of the objectives and needs for which we fund the strongest military in the world.

as someone mentioned, our military is not designed simply to defend america from foreign invasion, it's designed to project force across the world, in multiple areas simultaneously.  of course that requires more spending than any other country in the world, no other country is funding a military with that goal!  so the idea that we should just lop off 10% or whatever because our budget is big just seems purely wrongminded.  like, i have no idea if we need to spend 3, 4 or 5% of gdp to accomplish those goals and i suspect that no one arguing for cutting the military budget does either, but the notion that we can compare to what other countries are spending as a meaningful gauge doesn't make any sense.  so, if you want to argue that we should reduce our military by like 80% and be prepared to simply defend against a north american invasion and not have the capacity to project force outside of our borders, then fine, make that argument.  but the idea that we can take a haircut and still field an army that is unquestionably superior to any other on earth, anywhere on earth - that, i think is probably incorrect.  one lesson that i think i'm learning from the ukrainian invasion is that when it comes to an army, you do kinda get what you pay for.  and another is that having an overwhelming advantage on day 1 of any conflict is a lot more advantageous and probably cheaper overall than just maintaining a slight advantage that you hope will prevail over the course of a long conflict.

i am not sure that 80% reduction is necessary but i would like us to fundamentally rethink our miltary and its goals and objectives

[LickNeckey]

doesn't seem to me like a good time to reduce the military budget.

Why the eff not? We aren't doing crap and won't do crap anytime in the foreseeable future.

i'm going to address this question and lick's comment separately as that seems the clearest way to organize my comments, but of course, they're interrelated.

why not reduce now - 1.  we've transferred a fair bit of materiel to ukraine and presumably will continue to do so.  we need to replenish that,  2.  we're being given the opportunity to observe that we can advance our interests without having to use our own army by serving as an armory to willing and motivated forces with which we share the same goals and we should expand our capacity to arm democracies of the world in their hours of need, and 3.  we're currently being presented with the most up to date information available on what weaponry works against peer or near peer armies and what doesn't and we should take the opportunity to update our own forces accordingly.  i saw an opinion on twitter that we should be in no hurry to do so and instead should take the time to carefully evaluate the information gathered and how it relates to our own forces and vulnerabilities, and i think that makes a lot of sense, but the realities of the budgeting process are that you don't easily reduce spending now and expand later.  there's enormous inertia.  so given that i think we will have needs in the near future, reducing now would be counterproductive.

as it pertains to #3 i think there is some significant danger in updating our army to face the Russia's of the world

China is the geopolitical foe most militarily capable of causing us real issues moving forward (aside from nuclear discussions).

China is not building a neo cold war fighting force

[Institutional Control]

Thanks to Joe Biden, Dr. Oz can no longer afford crudité.

https://twitter.com/kohenari/status/1512065980192550918?s=20&t=syWxS7CHKE1Ub4h9CWMqnQ