Another Good Christian

[AZMIDLYF]

[Markus]

You will have to forgive me, as I am just a dumb Merican, what does all that mean?
(did not click links, will not until I hear your summary of what I will find there)

Summary:

Trump's ban on visas to certain majority-muslim countries has resulted in around 37,000 denied visas compared to around 1,000 the year before.

Asylum applications in Sweden peaked in 2015 at 162,877. In 2018, they had gone down to 21,502, which is below the 2000-2011 average.

[Markus]

Insulting, insinuating, moronic, self equating questions are not worth responding to. Since the questions are only intended to draw out a defensive response. AKA Trolling.....

What about my question was insulting, insinuating, moronic or self-equating?

[Markus]

I am a bit amazed the debt is not coming down with the energy issue USA being almost a net seller, or will be shortly.
Trumps dislike for expensive overseas wars and his understanding of the big picture re business.

Government debt will not come down until government income (i.e. taxes) is higher than government expenditure, where the biggest items are healthcare (e.g. Medicare and Medicaid) and Social Security. If you want to learn where the money goes, you can look here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expend...federal_budget

[John S]

Government debt will not come down until government income (i.e. taxes) is higher than government expenditure, where the biggest items are healthcare (e.g. Medicare and Medicaid) and Social Security.

Don't forget military expenditures. It floors me that no one bats an eye that the US spends as much as the next seven countries combined. A politician addressing any type of military expenditures is basically committing career suicide.

[powerabout]

Government debt will not come down until government income (i.e. taxes) is higher than government expenditure, where the biggest items are healthcare (e.g. Medicare and Medicaid) and Social Security. If you want to learn where the money goes, you can look here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expend...federal_budget

they need to fix the healthcare cost.
How can a country that doesnt have national health spend more per head on health than a country that does have national health? USA v UK

[powerabout]

Don't forget military expenditures. It floors me that no one bats an eye that the US spends as much as the next seven countries combined. A politician addressing any type of military expenditures is basically committing career suicide.

"spends as much as" is that total figure or percentage?
its outside the top 15 spenders in all areas except total amount of cash, meaning you can afford it on a per head or gdp size basis

[John S]

"spends as much as" is that total figure or percentage?
its outside the top 15 spenders in all areas except total amount of cash, meaning you can afford it on a per head or gdp size basis

Total. Not really sure what it has to do with percentage of GDP. It's wasted dollars that could be spent (or saved) domestically. Never seen the justification for this amount of spending. Starting out with maybe not having military bases in every square inch of the earth. The government has taken advantage of using the emotional feeling of safety to globalize it's military. We would be financially better off, as well as a better nation in general if our DOD was used in defense, rather than global watchdog. Time to let other nations handle their own problems, rather than intervene in every conflict on the globe. JMO

[powerabout]

Total. Not really sure what it has to do with percentage of GDP. It's wasted dollars that could be spent (or saved) domestically. Never seen the justification for this amount of spending. Starting out with maybe not having military bases in every square inch of the earth. The government has taken advantage of using the emotional feeling of safety to globalize it's military. We would be financially better off, as well as a better nation in general if our DOD was used in defense, rather than global watchdog. Time to let other nations handle their own problems, rather than intervene in every conflict on the globe. JMO

I think the global thing sort of dropped on your lap, twice the USA came to save the world then the USA's insatiable appetite for oil meant you had to safeguard the shipping and the friendly governments otherwise a few moves would have put the USA on its knees, 70's oil shortage was a good taste.
Therefore the biggest issue was/is the oil is in the Middle east so your local defense is useless.
That also makes a huge industry and a big seller of gear to overseas countries
Local defence would be having control of your borders but the libtards say its not nice no nothing happens.
State Dept told obomber that several countries (that happen to be muslim) cant guarantee passport details or check them obama did nothing. Trump took their advice and tried....

[John S]

I think the global thing sort of dropped on your lap, twice the USA came to save the world then the USA's insatiable appetite for oil meant you had to safeguard the shipping and the friendly governments otherwise a few moves would have put the USA on its knees, 70's oil shortage was a good taste.
Therefore the biggest issue was/is the oil is in the Middle east so your local defense is useless.
That also makes a huge industry and a big seller of gear to overseas countries

All good points. I would argue saving the world might be romanticising it a bit. Roosevelt held off entering the European portion of WW2 until the USSR had taken a large portion of the conflict, and the war with Japan was in no small part due to playing both sides of the China/Japan conflict. But that's for another thread I guess.

Isn't the US a net exporter of oil as of late? Do arms sales offset the other expenses of maintaining such a large global footprint? Not to mention, being present in sovereign nations does not exactly assure domestic safety. I would argue our military presence has caused more harm than goddamn in the ME. Let them scrap it out, and deal with the victors, rather than try to play puppet masters with puppets that rarely go along with the strings being pulled. Long story short, the US no longer, if ever before, needs to be world peace keeper. That money could be spent/ saved domestically. Should be spent on educating our population in the next wave of tech. JMO

[Markus]

Don't forget military expenditures. It floors me that no one bats an eye that the US spends as much as the next seven countries combined. A politician addressing any type of military expenditures is basically committing career suicide.

Military expenditures come a bit down the list. I bet the US spends as much on health care as the next seven countries combined as well...

[Markus]

they need to fix the healthcare cost.
How can a country that doesnt have national health spend more per head on health than a country that does have national health? USA v UK

Because the US spends approximately as much on government-paid healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid and healthcare for veterans) as the UK does (or Sweden for that sake). On top of that, it spends as much again on private healthcare.

US healthcare is a Mercedes S-class.
UK healthcare is a Toyota Corolla.

Most of the time, both will get you to the same place, but the cost and experience are different.

Once you are used to the S-class, you don't want to trade down to a Corolla.

[JPEROG]

Total. Not really sure what it has to do with percentage of GDP. It's wasted dollars that could be spent (or saved) domestically. Never seen the justification for this amount of spending. Starting out with maybe not having military bases in every square inch of the earth. The government has taken advantage of using the emotional feeling of safety to globalize it's military. We would be financially better off, as well as a better nation in general if our DOD was used in defense, rather than global watchdog. Time to let other nations handle their own problems, rather than intervene in every conflict on the globe. JMO

John,

I agree with this 100% in theory but the reality is that if we stand back and watch things escalate, it will have a "forest fire affect" and one of the parties involved the conflict will come out with a larger authority then what they went it with. We don't need to have any more "large powered" teams then we already have on the field. The second aspect to our current strategy is saving innocent lives from being caught up in conflict. The third is that our consistant presence at all of the post and bases is a major deterrent and avoids a lot of conflict from taking place at all.

Its a shame that for eight years our military spending was cut, run down and neglected. This current administration has had to make up a ton of ground to bring it back. This is not fiction but a well know fact. I have several relatives that are active military.

Joe

[Forkin' Crazy]

US economy grows by 3.2% in the first quarter, topping expectations

[Forkin' Crazy]

Wealth hitting all-time highs, unemployment rate reaching all-time lows under President Trump