cutting defense spending isn't enough to pay for social spending plans

Military spending is out of control, but how does it stack up against social security, Medicaid, and Medicare?

We're all for reducing defense spending, but it might surprise you to learn that we actually spend more on health care than the military. We even spend more just on social security than the military.

Even if we took all the money from the military, somehow confiscated all the net worth of all the billionaires in the US, managed to double the amount of money the government collects in annual income tax revenue, and found other ways to raise all the money we need to pay for the new massive social spending programs that have been proposed by Bernie Sanders and others (which is essentially impossible), the act of monetizing all of that money and getting it circulating in the economy would have another major problem.

According to FEE Sr. Fellow and Professor of Economics, Antony Davies:

"$40 trillion over 10 years is $4 trillion per year, which basically doubles the federal budget. That would mean – by Bernie’s own numbers – at best, $5 trillion deficits every year.


The Fed would have to monetize the bulk of that. If the Fed simply monetized half of those deficits, we’d be looking at circa 10% annual inflation on an on-going basis."

Unfortunately... None of this works the way a lot of people want it to. So, on this episode of Common Sense Soapbox, Seamus explains why we need to cut spending in ALL areas unless we want to fall off a fiscal cliff.
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CREDITS:
Written by Seamus Coughlin and Sean W. Malone
Research by Matt Hampton & Tyler Brandt
Animation By:
Seamus Coughlin
Natasha Canepa
Jaime Velasquez
Caleb Black
Amazil
Produced & Edited by Sean W. Malone
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LINKS:

[Mathmachine]

The delivery of "It wouldn't put a dent in the budget and would upset me immensely" was one of the funniest lines ever for these videos.

[buckberthod]

I'd love to see a Soapbox on the "Build back better" 3.5 trillion dollar plan

[juliadandoy]

It’s easier to say “tax the rich” and “pay your fair share” than it is to say “the government is really good at managing spending and deserves more money.”

[societyofrobots]

Tax revenue is a bell curve. At some point, increasing tax rates decreases tax revenue. Businesses collapse under the weight of taxes, fail, and then stop paying taxes entirely.

[jpg]

“When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it.

When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on.

When a man spends someone else's money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn't care at all how much he spends.

And when a man spends someone else's money on someone else, he does't care how much he spends or what he spends it on.

And that's government for you.”

-Milton Friedman

[joshuaharris]

I’m no expert but I remembered that medical prices skyrocketed due to the chargemaster that was created when insurance got involved

[ihateyankees]

"What do you mean the government can't afford more welfare programs? Just cut military spending!"
"We can't afford the military spending either."

[jonnda]

What if I told you that due to a "Use-it or lose-it" budget structure, the DoD dropped $4.6 million on crab and lobster, and $9, 000 on a chair in last-minute spending spree. They are incentivised by Congress to waste any remaining money in the budget, or face future budget cuts. Which would suck if they happened to actually need more money in the future. Clearly, there needs to be a better system for making budgets that de-incentivises lavish or wasteful spending $ just for the sake of spending $.

[GeoFry]

Few years ago spending loomed like this.

Nasa $27 billion
Military $600 billion
Federal Social Programs $2300 billion
This doesn't even include State and Local Social program expenditures which are similar in size to the Federal.

Of course we aren't spending enough right?

[kaisermaximal]

To put this in perspective:
1 million seconds is ~11 days
1 billion seconds is 31 years
1 trillion seconds is 31 MILLENIA (31, 709 years to be exact)

[ward]

Until the US government actually learns how to budget, we will never get anywhere

[Master_Yoda]

If you gave a person a house for free, would you expect that house to be in tip top shape when they leave? The same thing with government spending money that you gave them.

[jj_grabes]

I think Crowder talked about this too.

Even if you cut a decent majority of the government’s spending, you couldn’t cover things like Sanders’ Medicare For All.

Edit: You took the words right out of my mouth before I even knew you were going to say them.

[abcdefg]

If we put all the money we spend on social welfare into the military do you think we'd have Gundams? I for one think this is an important and relevant question.

[cobaltprime]

My question for the left is, why do we need to cut defense if you’re just going to raise the debt ceiling and borrow MORE money anyway? Basically paying off one credit card with another credit card with higher interest.

[PokefreakMaster]

It doesn’t seem like healthcare truly knows the value of a dollar to the average American

[bvoyelr]

It's a shame so many people fail to internalize facts like this. There'd be a lot more libertarians if people realized just how much money the federal government spends, to say nothing of how much it WANTS to spend.

[ashleypenn]

Keep speaking truth, Seamus. it needs to be told!

[naamadossantossilva]

Another thing to consider is that the military is what keeps the whole thing afloat.Without the USN you can say goodbye to international commerce and without the USAF and the Army to force them to accept the dollar, OPEC could ditch it and remove all its value instantly.

[aaronpaul]

I like how accurately they portrayed democracy with the push off the raft gag.