A challenge: How would you pay for troops?
Pie chart of budget outlays for fiscal year 2007
Here’s a challenge to all those armchair hawks who also consider themselves fiscal conservatives: How would you pay to send more troops to Afghanistan? What would you cut?
Please don’t tell me you’d cut welfare or foreign aid, both of which are miniscule parts of the federal budget. The big spending is Social Security, Medicare and the military.
One of the reasons we’re in the huge hole we’re in now is because George W. Bush became the first U.S. president to cut taxes in a time of two wars. That blew right through the surplus accumulated under Bill Clinton. So what would you cut? How would you pay for more troops?
As Nicholas Kristof notes in his column today:
The total bill in Afghanistan has been running around $1 million per year per soldier deployed there. That doesn’t include the long-term costs that will be incurred in coming decades — such as disability benefits, or up to $5 million to provide round-the-clock nursing care indefinitely for a single soldier who suffers brain injuries.
So if President Obama dispatches another 30,000 or 40,000 troops, on top of the 68,000 already there, that would bring the total annual bill for our military presence there to perhaps $100 billion — or more. And we haven’t even come to the human costs.
Any reasonable fiscal conservative who wants more troops in Afghanistan should either be willing to support a tax increase or huge cuts in popular programs, like Medicare.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Guides
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2011 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
84 comments Add your comment
booger
November 12th, 2009
12:08 pm
It’s simple, pay for it the same way we will pay for Health care reform, stimulus packages, TARPs, and earmarks. Borrow and print.
pat
November 12th, 2009
12:09 pm
dang Booger, you beat me to it!
booger
November 12th, 2009
12:26 pm
Pat, sorry. Quick question. When did Cynthia become fiscally aware, much less responsible?
Bajaboy
November 12th, 2009
12:38 pm
Cynthia has been bashing deficit spending since Clinton left office.
ctucker
November 12th, 2009
12:40 pm
Booger,
I may have been fiscally responsible before you were. I did not support Bill Clinton in the 1992 Democratic primary because he espoused a middle class tax cut, which I didn’t think the nation could afford. And I opposed the Medicare prescription drug plan, pushed through by George W. Bush and the Republican Congress, because I didn’t think the nation could afford it.
GaPeach1st
November 12th, 2009
12:57 pm
Cynthia failed to include Medicaid when she said that “Social Security, Medicare and military” . . . another example of her picking out just what she wants to. If she looks at the Revenue for Social Security. . the taxes collected versus the outlay she would see more SS taxes were collected than the projected outlay. And, if she would take into consideration that SS funds were used to finance the war . . just the way that Obama plans to rob SS/Medicare to pay for his ObamaCare.
Why would she include cutting “military” when she is posing the question as to how to pay for sending more troups to fight the war?
Peadawg
November 12th, 2009
12:57 pm
“And I opposed the Medicare prescription drug plan, pushed through by George W. Bush and the Republican Congress, because I didn’t think the nation could afford it.”
I about wet myself laughing at that one! Do you HONESTLY think we can afford Obama’s plan? Oh wait…it’s another one of those cases where Democrats can do it, but Republicans can’t. Give me a break.
TnGelding
November 12th, 2009
1:15 pm
Medicare and Social Security have paid for themselves and the wars for the last 8 years. Part ‘D’ needs to be phased-out, however. Let the wealthy pay for their own poison. You reallocate the Pentagon budget. But why continue the “war?” Ending the war on drugs would save tens of billions. Legalizing drugs would add tens of billions in revenue and provide resources for education and treatment. Taxing real estate and stock transactions 1/2 of a percent would raise tens of billions, which seems reasonable considering the agents get a 6% commission in some cases. Letting the Bush changes expire and adding a 10% surtax for all would produce hundreds of billions more. But spending simply has to be reduced or frozen, starting with grounding AF1 in a symbolic gesture. The protection of the president and the perks he receives have gotten entirely out of hand.
jt
November 12th, 2009
1:19 pm
A REAL conservative would not have a FEDERAL pie chart.
A REAL conservative would SCOFF at the idea of a Federal spending/revenue pie chart.
A REAL conservative would have a STATE budget pie chart with a barely discernable sliver denoting the few FEDERAL outlays that our constitution requires. Chances are, Georgia wouldn’t be at war.
Common Sense
November 12th, 2009
1:27 pm
How would we pay for more troops if let’s say Canada and Mexico tried to invade and take over the United States ………….. or let’s say North Korea invaded South Korea ………….. or let’s say China invaded Taiwan or let’s say Russia invaded France (no forget that one. I wouldn’t spend a penny for France) …………….. or let’s say Venezuela invaded all their neighbors …………… ??
dewstarpath
November 12th, 2009
1:27 pm
- Paying for troops is one question I think no single person
can answer. They can vote indivdually, but I would ask:
How can the troops pay for themselves?
A day or two ago I stated in one of your forums that most of
the innovations in defense technology were accomplished
during the Carter and Clinton eras. The conservatives wanted
to laugh – but their laughter wasn’t based on anything
substantial – because it was FACT (most of the advancements
today center around the development of the microprocessor
(Carter) and network-centric warfare (Clinton); there were smaller
breakthroughs during other Presidential administrations, but in
any occupational specialty, those two are the most significant.
Jet engines are important, but most of them now are CPU-controlled
(FADEC systems).)
The point I’m trying to make is that in order to pay for the troops,
any solution will have to be mindful of the global market situation,
both from an economic standpoint, as well as from a security standpoint.
Look at the flap when it was revealed several years ago when Marine One
was almost assigned to an EH-101, manufactured by a European
aerospace manufacturer, as opposed to Sikorsky in the US. The F-22
program is being scaled back, lagely due to the fact that it doesn’t meet
the combat needs presented by the two wars. Those unmanned drone
missions being carried out near Pakistan, hunting for Al-Quaeda elements –
largely began in Israel, in the late 1970s (IAI). There has to be a way to
use all of these expensive hardware systems to pay for the mounting cost
of our overseas conflicts.
IMO, the most obvious way – dual-use technology.
Only a fraction of the hardware used by our troops is transferable to
civilian markets. Agencies have been set up to address using this
avenue of budget management. The main problem is that of the
growing trade deficit – not enough Americans are buying things made
here – especially when it comes to high-tech. It’s complex – there are
no easy answers, but it’s definitely worth looking into. Lockheed in
particular (when compared to Grumman or Boeing) needs to explore
this option.
mike
November 12th, 2009
1:28 pm
“Here’s a challenge to all those armchair hawks who also consider themselves fiscal conservatives: How would you pay to send more troops to Afghanistan”
Does Tucker not remember hers and Obama’s cheerleading for the Afghan War? Does she not remember hers and Obama’s criticism of spending under Bush?
Guess what Cynthia. You, Obama and most of the Democrats in office are “armchair hawks who also consider themselves fiscal conservatives”. Of course, your mindless partisanship and utter lack of intellectual honesty makes it possible to talk about these people in the third person. What a joke.
Joey
November 12th, 2009
1:36 pm
I would first look at:
Salaries, benefits, vehicles, office space, utilities, travel, etc. Not just in DC-Metro Area, but at every Federal employment center, including Military facilities. At military facilities many civilian employees are not necessary. Some are Federal or other Government retirees.
These cost cannot be isolated in your pie chart.
I remain convinced that 35-45% of Upper Management and their Admin. Assists. are not necessary. Also 20-30% of other Federal staff are not necessary.
These people build little kingdoms that just never go away.
Example: When I lived in DC-Metro, my neighbor worked for the Bureau of Standards. His job, his team, was to study the proper location of safety signs in manufacturing facilities. He was head of his 7 person team, which included an Admin. Assist. His Director had an Admin. Assist. and there were two other similar teams under that Director. I suppose that the Director answered to someone, but I never asked that question.
Common Sense
November 12th, 2009
1:41 pm
No purple hearts, silver stars or other medals for the heroic troops killed and wounded at Ft. Hood because private Obama doesn’t want to admit it’s just another firefight in the war on terror.
Joey
November 12th, 2009
1:43 pm
Cynthia;
Your 12:40 raises a question.
If we could not afford the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan (I joined you in opposing that Plan to my Senators and Representative.), how can we afford any of the several Democrat National Health Care Plans?
El Jefe
November 12th, 2009
1:45 pm
Cythia,
It is easy.
Cut out all non-essential spending.
Department of Education is not needed since education should be a local issue and not Federal.
HHS and HUD are redundant and should be merged.
The Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Interior and Transportation are so overlapping, these could be merged also.
DOD, the VA and DHS should be merged.
Oh, and limiting the number of Czars would help also.
Congress, Advisors, aids, Department heads and “special advisors” should be paid the median income of the United States – instead 4-5 times that amount.
This alone would save billions of dollars.
Another cost cutting measure would be to go back to an Article I, Section 2 type tax system. That would involve repealing the 16th and 17th Amendments.
Of course getting Washington, inside the beltway types to give up POWER is unrealistic. Not impossible, just improbable.
El Jefe
November 12th, 2009
1:49 pm
In the real world, I would force Congress to spend no more than 85% of total revenues(taxes, fees and duties). Let Congress show the people where their priorities are.
Common Sense
November 12th, 2009
1:49 pm
There is only one way to solve Afghanistan (and other countries like it) and that would be to take every newborn child for three generations, move them to where they can receive a Westernized secular and religious education totally removed from Islam, and then let their offspring return. That “might” work.
Joey
November 12th, 2009
1:49 pm
One other comment about spending. I want to join or suppliment Mike’s comment. As I recall both you and Jay wrote several commentaries, dare I say Hawkish commentaries, during the Presidential Campaign of 2008 insisting that Afghanistan was the Right War. The War we needed to fight and win. So how were we to fund it?
Joey
November 12th, 2009
1:51 pm
Regarding El Jefe’s 1:45 and 1:49:
Here! Here!
El Jefe
November 12th, 2009
1:51 pm
Another area to cut the budget is to merge the Military and all the volunteer group. Merging Americore, et al and the Army would build our NATIONAL defensive posture.
mike
November 12th, 2009
1:53 pm
Joey –
Exactly. It is clear that all of Obama’s and Tucker’s enthusiasm was a cynical campaign ploy.
Well Cynthia, as an “armchair hawk who also consider herself a fiscal conservative”, how will you pay for the war that you advocated?
Peadawg
November 12th, 2009
2:24 pm
Cynthia, can you answer my question at 12:57pm: Do you HONESTLY think we can afford Obama’s plan any more then we could afford Bush’s Medicare plan? Especially at this time?!?!?!?
Jimmy62
November 12th, 2009
2:48 pm
The “surplus” in the Clinton era was fake, a relic of shifty government accounting practices. Had it been a household instead of a country, the residents would have been going hungry.
Now is an interesting question. But some things we could have done different before: Spend the trillions we spent on wasted stimulii and bailouts on the troops instead. Let failed companies fail so that succesful ones can rise up. Instead we support failures at the expense of potential successes that now won’t happen.
How about we raise SS to 70 years old, and stop giving the UAW more money, for starters?
jconservative
November 12th, 2009
3:08 pm
GaPeach1st
You are reading the charts incorrectly. The $867 Billion collected is “Social Insurance”, Social Security & Medicare combined. The outlays, $582 Billion for Soc Sec & $534 Billion for Medicare/Medicaid
total $1,116 trillion, a deficit of $249 Billion. We are already borrowing from the “trust funds”.
Obviously something has to be cut. We cannot continue to do what we have done since 1960, which is spend, spend, spend. The national debt in 1960 was $260 Billion. The national debt as of 11/10/09 was
$11,986,954,033,520.56 – (that’s trillions). This is the result of 49 years of uncontrolled spending. (You can google or yahoo bureau of the public debt, click on the green button for the debt to the penny.)
smitty
November 12th, 2009
3:10 pm
Obama’s not interested in worrying about paying for anything else why worry about this.
jconservative
November 12th, 2009
3:15 pm
TnGelding
You holding up OK? Seems like I missed you for a few days.
Regards
Peadawg
November 12th, 2009
3:22 pm
jconservative, that debt isn’t because of the past 49 years; it’s all because of Bush, remember?
~sarcasm~
Turd Feguson
November 12th, 2009
3:45 pm
One way to pay for it would be a AJC Swimsuit calendar.
OH YES!! I said it!!
“The Women of the AJC featuring Ms Cynthia Tucker”
Let Ms Tucker take you thru the year with a special pictorial for all seasons. Buy 1, buy 3 they make excellent Christmas gifts. Act now and for an addl $9.99 have yours signed by Ms Tucker. Sure to be a collectors item.
Well COUNT ME IN. Donate the money however you please. Sign me up for and a bakers dozen. A calendear for every month!!
jt
November 12th, 2009
4:11 pm
The Women of the AJC featuring Ms Cynthia Tucker”
Now that is an idea with leggs.
Sign me up too.
Road Scholar
November 12th, 2009
4:12 pm
All these self- proclaimed fiscally conservative conservatives, and no specific plan to pay for the war! Boy, am I surprised!
mike
November 12th, 2009
4:22 pm
Road Scholar –
“All these self- proclaimed fiscally conservative conservatives, and no specific plan to pay for the war!”
LOL. What about Tucker and Obama, both whom claim to be fiscally conservative, cheerleaded for this war and have no specific plan to pay for it?
Are they too liberal to be criticized by you? LOL
Shawny
November 12th, 2009
4:32 pm
Scale back the size of govt immensly.
Abolish the IRS. Everyone pays 15% income tax. No shelters, no deductions, etc. Want it progressive? Ok, then make it a sliding scale, but get rid of that function entirely.
Force Congress to pass laws on the merits of the law itself, and not allow anything into a bill that does not represent the main intent of the bill. In other words, no pork spending. A transportation bill should not include millions for a new John Murtha memorial massage parlor.
Do not pass any more stimulus bills.
Do not pass any more cash for clunkers bills.
Do not pass this healthcare debacle.
Enact a presidential line item veto.
Set congressional term limits. I know this flies in the face of strict constitutionalists, but we did it for presidents.
Determine a way to allow on-line secured voting. Requires far less pollsters, polling places, etc. Also will allow overseas US citizens to get their votes in promptly and with less expense.
Reduce the post office to operating only 4 days per week. How often to you need your snail mail anyway? Is that valpak that critical?
Execute death row inmates where there is absolutely no doubt that they performed the crime and have been convicted by a jury of their peers. Quit feeding and housing them.
For those that experience jail time, bill them. They ate and were housed, so let them pay a daily rate based on their time of incarceration. Cant to it? Next of kin is responsible. Might make them think more about doing time and will reduce the expense.
Fine companies using illegal alien employees so heavily that it dries up that source of labor, in effect, allowing unemployed US citizens to take those jobs. They pay taxes, have insurance coverage, etc.
Do not go crazy in spending to counter global warming. It has not been proven that action will do anything.
I could go on and on, but am tired of typing.
Joey
November 12th, 2009
4:32 pm
I suggest that Scholarly does not describe the comment at 4:12.
jconservative
November 12th, 2009
4:41 pm
Road Scholar
“All these self- proclaimed fiscally conservative conservatives, and no specific plan to pay for the war! Boy, am I surprised.”
Imagine I recommended leaving Afghanistan in late 2002 after we failed to get bin Laden. And I recommended not doing the Iraq thing. And they listened to me & we saved 1 trillion dollars.
Now with 1 trillion in savings we could have put new federal office buildings in all 435 congressional districts, and lowered everyone taxes again. Maybe even mailed everybody another check.
You get the idea. It is not the specifics, it is the belief that we, as a nation, want government to take care of everything but we do not want to pay for it. Let somebody else pay for it. But do not for a second fail to take care of things.
Had we saved that mythical 1 trillion, the correct thing would have been to do nothing. Remember the “peace dividend” after the Cold War was over? Congressmen were drooling over how to spend the money. And they did. The money never existed, but they spent it anyway. Remember the “surplus”? We had a national debt of 5 trillion dollars but somehow we found a “surplus”. So we sent everyone a check.
I do not know of any medicine to cure the disease.
Chad
November 12th, 2009
5:02 pm
First of all, even if there was a “surplus”, doesn’t that simply mean that taxes were to hgigh? When did the government become a profit center. Secondly, as we learned in the 80s, cutting taxes increases tax revenue becuase it increases the taxable base. Even accounting for inflation, the Reagan tax cuts brought in much more revenue than the previous higher tax rates. The Congress just spent that much more.
Sunshine and Thunder
November 12th, 2009
5:46 pm
First of all cutting taxes increases revenue because it increases incentive to foment economic activity (also known as “making money”).
Secondly, if there was a surplus before Bush why did the national debt go up each year of the Clinton Admin?
Third, I love it when you libs say we had a surplus even though your congressman stole your social security money to buy votes with.
ck Hall
November 12th, 2009
8:29 pm
Duh! Pay for it with Obamacare $$ Or simply print more money!
Common Sense
November 12th, 2009
8:29 pm
“And the Truth Shall Make You Free”
There are three types of Islam:
1) Westernized Islam – a minority of Muslims in the U.S. are in this category. They worship Allah in sincerity but they also (because of their education and secularization) embrace freedom and Western democracy. They fear the other two forms of Islam probably as much as we do.
2) Basic Islam – most Muslims in the world fall into this category and many live in the U.S. They embrace Islam in its unbridled totality (educational, societal, legal, military, religious, etc.,). They may not individually murder or terrorize in the name of Allah/Islam but neither to they verbally condemn those who do. Radical Islam recruits from their ranks. This type of Islam must be marginalized in the U.S. as much as possible (including immigration) or given enough time and volume it will ensure the destruction of this Republic as we know it.
3) Radical Islam – these types of Muslims will stop at nothing to physically force their vicious schism of Islam on the world. They are pure evil and every effort must be made to totally eradicate their influence and existance from the face of the earth.
LeeH1
November 12th, 2009
9:00 pm
I thought Rumsfeld said we didn’t need to pay for the war in Iraq because we would take it out of their oil revenues. What happened to that idea?
Why should we build schools and roads in Iraq when they have a $100 billion surplus? Let them build it themselves, out of their reserves and their own taxes.
Even if it wouldn’t pay for the war, paying America for the war out of Iraqi revenues would at least make Haliburton richer, which is enough.
LOLO
November 12th, 2009
9:29 pm
How about creating a DIRECT stimulus to the tax payers of the United States. Instead of wasting billions of dollars in compliance costs and red tape, of which only a portion from the ARRA reaches the ground level, stop all federal withholdings from people’s paychecks for at least 2-3 months, and allow equivalent deductions from those who pay at the end of the year. See how long that takes to kick up the economy and drive down unemployment. Nobody knows how to spend or save their own money better than themselves. Couple this direct stimulus with cuts from non-defense discretionary, federal education, and environmental spending and things in this country will get back on track in no time, again able to provide for what should be the number one federal priority: national defense.
True tax reform is another subject but would be a second logical step towards solving our economic malaise.
Allen
November 12th, 2009
9:30 pm
What was the total outlay in the last year of Clinton for defense? I would like to see that amount adjusted for inflation in 2009 dollars. And let’s not forget 2007 is post 9/11 so obviously we need more spending on defense than in previous terms. The flip side is sure, you can cut back all military and overseas troops. But remember that puts thousands more (a lot, not all, but a lot of whom do not have any more than a high school diploma) on the streets and in the job market. Boy that will blow up Obama’s unemployment rate to unheard of levels.
Tommy Maddox
November 12th, 2009
9:44 pm
Let’s see:
1. Clinton’s years were for the most part overseen by a Republican Congress which gave us a surplus;
2. Clinton’s years were not subject war [notwithstanding the crossfire he took while presiding with his pants down near a motivated vacuum cleaner;
3. War came, the surplus was spent. Then Pres. Bush spent more.
4. Now, and in only 9 months, Prezbo has quadrupled the entire deficit of Bush’s final year in office.
Maybe if we bring back a little of that money blown in item 4, we could afford to wage war on Mars let alone Afghanistan. Nice pie charts by the way…
mmm, mmm, mmm, Barack the LIAR Obama
November 12th, 2009
10:11 pm
This is a NO brainer, the same way NObama will pay for tax payer funded health care. Remember the $600. toilet seat? Just think of all the waste that will be found once NObama sets his mind to finding it.
Grumpy
November 12th, 2009
10:12 pm
I’d support a tax increase to pay for defense long before I’d support one to expand other areas of government, fund porkulus spending, or bail out any more corporate entities.
A Soldier
November 12th, 2009
10:30 pm
Everyone has their opinions…that’s what we fight for. It’s cool. My one and only question: Where did the figure of $1M per soldier per year come from? As a logistician (not to mention a taxpayer), I’d sure like to see how that money was spent. I know when I was in Afghanistan, I got less than $4/day per diem. All in all, count about $130,000 in regular salary and benefits (I’m mid-way up the food chain, but that’s still quite a bit less than what your average contractor makes). I ate three meals a day, so let’s splurge and say another $50,000 for dining in a combat zone. I figure about $50,000 for transportation to and from the combat zone, support from the Exchange and other services. I still only come up with $230,000. Since it’s Thursday, I’d even throw in another $20K and round it to $250,000. That’s still a far cry from the $1,000,000 we paid for me to serve.
What I’m trying to say is…instead of bickering about blues and reds and small stuff like that, please take the time to truly understand ALL of what we’re doing…why we’re there, and at what real cost. Notice I gave no opinion as to SHOULD we be there… that’s not my decision to make. As a taxpayer and citizen, however, it is my responsibility to take a critical look at the bill…to truly understand who is getting paid, who loses out as a result, and how the subsequent motivations of each affect our national decisions. It’s your responsibility to do the same, without the prejudice of politics clouding your judgment.
StJ
November 12th, 2009
10:50 pm
Get our money back from ACORN and all the other shady organizations that took federal money in the so-called “stimulus”.
While were in the business of recovering money from sleazeballs, go ahead and seize George Soros’ bank accounts.
Old Patriot
November 13th, 2009
12:20 am
Can you put a price tag on the freedom of this nation? This is the primary role of the Federal government, to provide security and fight for the freedom of this great nation, not to provide welfare for the citizens. It may be easy to sit there and complain about how big the military budget is, while complacent in the fact that in general you are safe from most outside threats, but take away the military, and we have a big target on our backs.
Unfortunately you are right, the nation is broke, and it is financially draining funding military. However, I personally think it is a small price to pay to ensure security for my family and loved ones. I would rather have my tax dollars going to support the young men and women who volunteer to protect all those in our nation and our lifestyle, then the much greater price tag they are allocating to make sure we all have healthcare provided. Healthcare, doesn’t do much to protect us from terrorist attacks, or nuclear threats, or the other nations that are chomping at the bit to see us fall, and would greatly contribute to U.S. demise.
I am not a military strategist. I admit, I would love to be able to provide an alternate view of what state our nation would be in today, had we not gone to war in Afghanistan and Iraq eight years ago, but just shaken it off, and continued on indifferent to what happened on 9/11/11. Do you think we would be in a better state now? Personally, I think the work we’ve done over in Iraq and Afghanistan has probably been a very worthwhile investment.
I can’t believe this is even a question. We’ve come a long ways from Patrick Henry’s “Give me Liberty or give me death.”
ken
November 13th, 2009
12:35 am
Mandatory drug and alcohol tests for welfare recipients. If positive, cut them off. That pay for at least 50%.
Peaches
November 13th, 2009
6:18 am
I am more willing to pay for troops than for the lame brained, no job creating (or saving) silliness that was Obama’s stimulus package.