1) What should be the top priority of the U.S. Government?

2) Why?

3) What should be changed?

Defense

Because that's its constitutional function.

Either downsize our involvement in foreign affairs or fund the military adequately to do what the government wants it to do. 


Sapere Aude

There's a good argument for defense as the government is rather explicitly charged with taking care of the "crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women," part of things.   

I'm also sympathetic to the idea that it should be "growing the GDP."  There is no better single encapsulation of a nation's domestic standard of living and international stature than GDP.  If a government can make capital wealthier, labor better-paid, and infrastructure better, and sustain those improvements, it will pay for most of the rest taking care of itself.  A few things (civil liberties spring to mind) don't follow directly, but they certainly aren't excluded, and wealthier nations spend less time worrying about where dinner is coming from than how to make the world better.     

Quote from: Deborah on May 27, 2016, 03:27:32 PM
Defense

Because that's its constitutional function.

Either downsize our involvement in foreign affairs or fund the military adequately to do what the government wants it to do. 


Sapere Aude

If it were possible to allocate the necessary funding, which foreign affair should be the U.S. Government's main focus and how should it intervene?

Quote from: Colleen M on May 27, 2016, 04:00:41 PM
There's a good argument for defense as the government is rather explicitly charged with taking care of the "crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women," part of things.   

I'm also sympathetic to the idea that it should be "growing the GDP."  There is no better single encapsulation of a nation's domestic standard of living and international stature than GDP.  If a government can make capital wealthier, labor better-paid, and infrastructure better, and sustain those improvements, it will pay for most of the rest taking care of itself.  A few things (civil liberties spring to mind) don't follow directly, but they certainly aren't excluded, and wealthier nations spend less time worrying about where dinner is coming from than how to make the world better.     

How can the U.S. Government make capital wealthier, labor better-paid and infrastructure better and sustain those improvements?

@Deborah

I forgot to write that you look great in your new avatar.

Quote from: autumn08 on May 28, 2016, 01:00:35 AM
If it were possible to allocate the necessary funding, which foreign affair should be the U.S. Government's main focus and how should it intervene?

That's a good question.  I was kind of expecting that and hoping you wouldn't ask, LOL. 

There are four possible choices here I think for the top priority.  Those are stability in Africa, countering Islamic extremism in the Middle East, countering potential Russian expansion, and maintaining our sphere of influence in the Pacific.  From a defense perspective the last two are are the ones that present us with the most challenges and that our current trajectory in defense spending leaves questionable as to outcome.

The main focus should be on the Pacific because of trade and economic considerations.  Here we should be prepared to intervene to stop N Korean aggression and to assist allies in stabilizing internal imbalances should that be necessary.  We also need to maintain enough credible capability to check Chinese military expansion in the Pacific Rim.

Our biggest problem though is conflict with Russia.  Both political parties seem to be of the opinion that any move by Russia to maintain their own historic sphere of influence should be opposed by the US and NATO.  So, the potential for conflict involving us is high.  Right now our certainty of being able to prevail in a land conflict in that region is very low.  This could lead us back to the situation of nuclear brinksmanship depending on how far each side is willing to go.  If our government is serious about wanting to defend every country on the Russian frontier then we need immediate modernization in a few key areas, expansion of the size of our active land force, and reintroduction of forward positioned forces in Western Europe.  At the same time NATO countries need to do the same.

I'm not saying I think a land war with Russia is desirable.  I think that would be disastrous.  But if the USA wants a foreign policy that presents that threat to the Russians then we need to have the capacity to follow through.


Sapere Aude

Quote from: Deborah on May 28, 2016, 03:08:50 AM
That's a good question.  I was kind of expecting that and hoping you wouldn't ask, LOL. 

There are four possible choices here I think for the top priority.  Those are stability in Africa, countering Islamic extremism in the Middle East, countering potential Russian expansion, and maintaining our sphere of influence in the Pacific.  From a defense perspective the last two are are the ones that present us with the most challenges and that our current trajectory in defense spending leaves questionable as to outcome.

The main focus should be on the Pacific because of trade and economic considerations.  Here we should be prepared to intervene to stop N Korean aggression and to assist allies in stabilizing internal imbalances should that be necessary.  We also need to maintain enough credible capability to check Chinese military expansion in the Pacific Rim.

Our biggest problem though is conflict with Russia.  Both political parties seem to be of the opinion that any move by Russia to maintain their own historic sphere of influence should be opposed by the US and NATO.  So, the potential for conflict involving us is high.  Right now our certainty of being able to prevail in a land conflict in that region is very low.  This could lead us back to the situation of nuclear brinksmanship depending on how far each side is willing to go.  If our government is serious about wanting to defend every country on the Russian frontier then we need immediate modernization in a few key areas, expansion of the size of our active land force, and reintroduction of forward positioned forces in Western Europe.  At the same time NATO countries need to do the same.

I'm not saying I think a land war with Russia is desirable.  I think that would be disastrous.  But if the USA wants a foreign policy that presents that threat to the Russians then we need to have the capacity to follow through.


Sapere Aude

Thank you for your reply, Deborah.


I would argue that your second choice (Islamic Extremism) is the greatest immediate outside threat to western civilization and thus the U.S., as fear is exacerbating European division and empowering the extreme elements of western politics, and aspirations for a caliphate continue to cause an unconscionable number of deaths and incubate terrorism. However, I agree that Chinese and Russian aggression continue to be our most prodigious threats.

China claims ownership of territorial waters along the coasts of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, and is rapidly transforming reefs, in an area belonging to its neighbors, into militarized islands. One of those reefs, the Mischief Reef, is also claimed by the Philippines, with which we have a mutual defense treaty. If the U.S. remains committed to balancing power and asserting the freedom of navigation, a crisis could be on the horizon, unless China is scrupulously constrained.

Russia recently invaded Georgia and Ukraine, after both pursued greater integration with Europe. Many fear the Baltic States are next, but I don't think Russia would be so brazen as to invade a country that is already integrated into the EU and NATO. For psychological reasons, I wish we had a more credible deterrence, but even the 150 American soldiers in each of the Baltic States would make a Russian invasion quickly apparent and force a strong response, so an imminent invasion is unlikely (I hope).

I think the greater present Russian threat lies in its propaganda (RT and Sputnik), its subsidization of extremist politicians (Marine Le Pen), its fear inducement shifting power to the right (Poland's Law and Justice Party), and its bombardment of U.S. backed Syrian Rebels and thus its protraction of Bashar Al-Assad's reign and the Syrian Civil War. I won't go off on a tangent about the Syrian Civil War, so I will just say we need to do more to counter Russian disinformation and that I agree with you that we need to do more to make our allies feel safe.

I'll end with a question about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. has provided Ukraine with much needed cash and loan guarantees, but the military equipment it sent was limited and poor. Therefore, should the U.S. better arm the Ukrainians to deter the Russians from attempting to connect the Donbass to Crimea, or is the risk of thawing the conflict too great?

Quote from: autumn08 on May 28, 2016, 01:01:36 AM
How can the U.S. Government make capital wealthier, labor better-paid and infrastructure better and sustain those improvements?

It's more than a little fuzzy and ill-defined.  There's a reason you don't find any one-handed economists.  Still, what we can say is that the government should clearly stay out of the pockets of both wall street and unions, rather than each buying a party outright. 

Proactively, tech investments beyond the realm of ordinary citizens (DARPA and NASA simply rain these things) like the internet and GPS have been worth the money.  At the moment, the rail gun the Navy is so in love with has huge implications not just for blowing stuff up but for capacitors and batteries.  The projectile will help advance shock-proof electronics for everybody.  Generally, anything in materials science, chemistry, robotics, or computing which NASA or DARPA get involved with has a good chance of eventually benefiting the public and I think those two agencies have earned the benefit of the doubt.  Better tank armor, OTOH, is probably best viewed as a purely Defense application, so I'm not saying write the Pentagon a blank check for everything.   

Somewhat less violently, our roads are falling apart and we need to evaluate how we fix that.  We can't just ignore the stretch of I-75 between Detroit and Toledo, but it's clearly both too wide and too broken-down for the traffic it faces now.  Infrastructure spending both needs to expand and it needs to be spent better.

Labor laws are a patchwork disaster.  Either the employee has the right to avoid unions or he doesn't; either employers have the right to "at will" employment or they don't; and this is one area where federalism has clearly stopped being a laboratory and is now just a mess.  It's past time to take what we learned from 50 individual experiments and put the best into a national policy.

As Deborah has quite properly noted, the demands we place on our military are out of all proportion to its budget.  I'd actually reduce demands to what the current budget will meet, and then give them enough of a budget increase to make sure the traditional American "treasure for blood" trade can be met as we are simply not emotionally equipped for real casualties at this point.  That increase with a tech focus should continue to provide new tech for the private sector.  Also, carriers are quickly becoming obsolete, so let's make a virtue of necessity and save bunches of money phasing them out instead of building and crewing more.  And don't get me started on the F-35.   

The tax code needs to be simplified and the tax base expanded.  The tax preparation lobby needs to be told to go perform anatomically impossible acts of self-gratification and a married couple with two jobs should not need to spend more than 15 minutes doing their taxes, nor should a company waste hundreds of hours complying with federal tax law.  Tax churches just like every other business.  While we're figuring out how to deal with all the illegal aliens we have (its own problem) we need to figure out how to make them pay their fair tax burden just like everybody else.  Is that a higher sales tax?  A tax on money sent out of the country?  I'm not sure and it requires a lot of crunching of numbers I don't have.

A national educational standard forbidding creationism would be nice.  STEM fields need all the help they can get generally.   

This could go on a while  Honestly, it's large and all-encompassing.  But ultimately, as the man said, "The business of America is business."   

   

         

Isn't spending in this country out of control? I wonder how things would look if budgets were balanced and programs and services were paid for without having to increase taxes.

Quote from: pt98701 on May 29, 2016, 07:50:09 PM
Isn't spending in this country out of control? I wonder how things would look if budgets were balanced and programs and services were paid for without having to increase taxes.

I actually do have some ideas for killing entire programs, privatizing others (TSA, e.g.) and so forth.  It's just not germane to the question asked.  Candidly, I've opened a huge and unclear can of worms just as it is, I don't want to make it worse.   

Quote from: Colleen M on May 29, 2016, 07:01:45 PM
It's more than a little fuzzy and ill-defined.  There's a reason you don't find any one-handed economists.  Still, what we can say is that the government should clearly stay out of the pockets of both wall street and unions, rather than each buying a party outright. 

Proactively, tech investments beyond the realm of ordinary citizens (DARPA and NASA simply rain these things) like the internet and GPS have been worth the money.  At the moment, the rail gun the Navy is so in love with has huge implications not just for blowing stuff up but for capacitors and batteries.  The projectile will help advance shock-proof electronics for everybody.  Generally, anything in materials science, chemistry, robotics, or computing which NASA or DARPA get involved with has a good chance of eventually benefiting the public and I think those two agencies have earned the benefit of the doubt.  Better tank armor, OTOH, is probably best viewed as a purely Defense application, so I'm not saying write the Pentagon a blank check for everything.   

Somewhat less violently, our roads are falling apart and we need to evaluate how we fix that.  We can't just ignore the stretch of I-75 between Detroit and Toledo, but it's clearly both too wide and too broken-down for the traffic it faces now.  Infrastructure spending both needs to expand and it needs to be spent better.

Labor laws are a patchwork disaster.  Either the employee has the right to avoid unions or he doesn't; either employers have the right to "at will" employment or they don't; and this is one area where federalism has clearly stopped being a laboratory and is now just a mess.  It's past time to take what we learned from 50 individual experiments and put the best into a national policy.

As Deborah has quite properly noted, the demands we place on our military are out of all proportion to its budget.  I'd actually reduce demands to what the current budget will meet, and then give them enough of a budget increase to make sure the traditional American "treasure for blood" trade can be met as we are simply not emotionally equipped for real casualties at this point.  That increase with a tech focus should continue to provide new tech for the private sector.  Also, carriers are quickly becoming obsolete, so let's make a virtue of necessity and save bunches of money phasing them out instead of building and crewing more.  And don't get me started on the F-35.   

The tax code needs to be simplified and the tax base expanded.  The tax preparation lobby needs to be told to go perform anatomically impossible acts of self-gratification and a married couple with two jobs should not need to spend more than 15 minutes doing their taxes, nor should a company waste hundreds of hours complying with federal tax law.  Tax churches just like every other business.  While we're figuring out how to deal with all the illegal aliens we have (its own problem) we need to figure out how to make them pay their fair tax burden just like everybody else.  Is that a higher sales tax?  A tax on money sent out of the country?  I'm not sure and it requires a lot of crunching of numbers I don't have.

A national educational standard forbidding creationism would be nice.  STEM fields need all the help they can get generally.   

This could go on a while  Honestly, it's large and all-encompassing.  But ultimately, as the man said, "The business of America is business."   

   

         

Thank you for your comprehensive reply, Colleen. Let me quickly agree with you about the need for more spending on research and development, and infrastructure, and address two other issues you raised; campaign finance reform and education reform.

To reform campaign finance, I think at least two things should be done; 1) contribution limits to political parties should be increased from $33,400 to $100,000 and 2) small donations to political parties should be matched with public funds. Unlike special interests and ideologues, political parties desire to create broad coalitions, so by diverting influence from Super PACs to political parties and augmenting the influence of small donations, our government would hopefully be moderated and the interests of the entire country better served.

To reform education, I think at least three things should be done; 1) the federal government should subsidize poor school districts, in order to narrow their funding gap with affluent school districts, 2) follow Finland's example and implement a rigorous standard on teachers and curriculums, and 3) provide high quality pre-k for all, which unlike other programs, creates long-term improvements in life outcomes and pays for itself, by lowering government expenditures on the safety net. Doing these three things should alleviate inequality and put the U.S on a more prosperous trajectory, which would increase the overall well-being of Americans and would have a myriad secondary benefits.

Quote from: pt98701 on May 29, 2016, 07:50:09 PM
Isn't spending in this country out of control? I wonder how things would look if budgets were balanced and programs and services were paid for without having to increase taxes.

Overall, our economy is experiencing a dearth of spending, which is shown by our low interest rates and low inflation rate. Since government borrowing will only become more expensive and less beneficial to the economy, spending should actually be increased to at least take care of inevitable projects.

Quote from: autumn08 on May 29, 2016, 05:48:50 PM
Thank you for your reply, Deborah.


I would argue that your second choice (Islamic Extremism) is the greatest immediate outside threat to western civilization and thus the U.S., as fear is exacerbating European division and empowering the extreme elements of western politics, and aspirations for a caliphate continue to cause an unconscionable number of deaths and incubate terrorism. However, I agree that Chinese and Russian aggression continue to be our most prodigious threats.

China claims ownership of territorial waters along the coasts of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, and is rapidly transforming reefs, in an area belonging to its neighbors, into militarized islands. One of those reefs, the Mischief Reef, is also claimed by the Philippines, with which we have a mutual defense treaty. If the U.S. remains committed to balancing power and asserting the freedom of navigation, a crisis could be on the horizon, unless China is scrupulously constrained.

Russia recently invaded Georgia and Ukraine, after both pursued greater integration with Europe. Many fear the Baltic States are next, but I don't think Russia would be so brazen as to invade a country that is already integrated into the EU and NATO. For psychological reasons, I wish we had a more credible deterrence, but even the 150 American soldiers in each of the Baltic States would make a Russian invasion quickly apparent and force a strong response, so an imminent invasion is unlikely (I hope).

I think the greater present Russian threat lies in its propaganda (RT and Sputnik), its subsidization of extremist politicians (Marine Le Pen), its fear inducement shifting power to the right (Poland's Law and Justice Party), and its bombardment of U.S. backed Syrian Rebels and thus its protraction of Bashar Al-Assad's reign and the Syrian Civil War. I won't go off on a tangent about the Syrian Civil War, so I will just say we need to do more to counter Russian disinformation and that I agree with you that we need to do more to make our allies feel safe.

I'll end with a question about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. has provided Ukraine with much needed cash and loan guarantees, but the military equipment it sent was limited and poor. Therefore, should the U.S. better arm the Ukrainians to deter the Russians from attempting to connect the Donbass to Crimea, or is the risk of thawing the conflict too great?

One effect of our defense budget restraints is that Russian armored vehicles are now better than ours.  They also have developed some extremely effective and lethal tactics using drones to find and target and rockets to attack.  Their capability is beyond what we currently have.  They also seem to be very well trained, much better than during the Cold War.  So I'm not sure sending more weapons to Ukraine would help them a whole lot and might escalate the situation.

I also think that injecting ourselves militarily into affairs within the Russian sphere of influence will not end well.  I recall that when the Russians did that in Cuba, our sphere of influence, it nearly led to a nuclear war.


Sapere Aude

The top priority the government should be is to pass a budget every single year. We have made commitments and we must follow through with meeting those commitments. Default on our loans, killing projects in progress, and shutting down governance, will kill our economy and devalue our currency. Most people do not realize how many times in the past decade Congress has threatened to default on our debt. In this election year, the GOP has decided not to hold our budget hostage. Notice how much better things are? If not, just wait until they start their antics right after the general election.

This is the most basic job requirement of everyone we elect. If I hired someone and they did not do their job, I'd fire them.

My recipe for priorities for the government is

1. Economic stimulus - reduction in in inequality. Tax corporations higher and tax offshore cash - and bring taxation of the wealthy back to the Eisenhower levels. Essentially bringing us more in line with the social democracies of Europe, Canada etc.

Picking just one is unrealistic though because many things are so interconnected including:

2. Guarantee domestic human rights, voting rights and protect the political power of minorities.
3. Reduction in defense spending from the $700B level it is today to perhaps $100B. We'd still be outspending China and Russia at that level. Consolidate the military into one branch - United States Defense Force - reducing expense and bureaucracy. Close most of our overseas bases and bring those troops home. End the "power projection " role of the US and reduce defense commitment to that of a single alliance member.
4. Medicare for all - Single payer health system - Taking for profit insurance companies out of the equation all together and making sure everyone has access to health care
5. Shifting of the spending above to repairing infrastructure
6. Immigration reform including a path to citizenship for everyone that is here.

Essentially my priorities would be those of the left and Sander's supporters.

World wide education.  Make people smarter, not with propaganda,  religious dogma nor standardized testing.

Show people what the world could be and you have solved most problems.

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Cut out foreign aid and use that money for free university educations and helping the homeless and veterans. Yall realize we give away around 900 billion a yr to people who hate us..Building the southern border wall and send all illegals packing back to the countries they profess to love while living in America and wanting Americans to be more like the people in their despot countries..cut out military waste and strengthen the military properly. I could go on but I'll be censored if I do.

Quote from: cheryl reeves on June 06, 2016, 12:11:14 PM
Cut out foreign aid and use that money for free university educations and helping the homeless and veterans. Yall realize we give away around 900 billion a yr to people who hate us.

Actually, the figure for foreign aid in the US budget is $34 billion, not $900 billion.  Here's a link to the information:

http://beta.foreignassistance.gov

The true figure amounts to less than one percent of the annual US budget.  Most people vastly overestimate the percentage that goes to foreign aid.  Last year, the Kaiser Family Foundation (which does lots of research on healthcare issues) commissioned a public opinion survey, asking 1505 respondents to guess the percentage.  Only about five percent of the respondents understood that the actual figure is less than one percent.

The average guess by respondents in the survey was 26%, which would yield a figure in the $900 billion range you mentioned.  The Kaiser Foundation has conducted the same survey for many years, and the results are always pretty uniform.  Bottom line: Americans vastly overestimate the amount of money spent on foreign aid.

Here's a link to a National Public Radio article on the Kaiser survey:

http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/02/10/383875581/guess-how-much-of-uncle-sams-money-goes-to-foreign-aid-guess-again

Still 34billion isn't something to sneeze at. Like Bernie promising free college and that would run around 10-11 billion,10 billion to gets and homeless would leave around 14 billion to other subsidies like paying back social security and better education curriculum. So explain why America needs to support people who hate us but want our welfare handouts.