Is it largely salary payments to current troops? Wouldn't we have to deal with a large unemployment problem in case we laid off a bunch of military employees and told them to go find a job somewhere else?
Or is it payment to defense contractors, such as Valley's own Lockheed Martin? Wouldn't this cause a large number of people to be unemployed, contributing to recession?
Spending money on government employees who provide no value is not sustainable. Those employees go spend their money on goods and services produced in other countries (where the workers are actually providing useful services) and you get a net flow of cash out of the U.S.
Is it the government's job to keep people employed for the sake of employing them? No!
There are times in history where government spending can help, like during the Great Depression. The government spent a lot of money on public works projects to help put some people back to work. But this didn't do much to actually end the depression. It was the onset of WWII and the subsequent ramp-up to a war economy that really ended the Depression.
WWII and the rampup was still a public works project.
What really turned the economy for good imo was not WWII but the result of WWII -- all of our competitors on the international stage having large parts of their population and infrastructure destroyed. A few year grace period while the rest of the world rebuilt turned into 50 years of global corporate hegemony.
> Is it the government's job to keep people employed for the sake of employing them? No!
The most basic task of government is to maintain a stable social order (see, e.g., the preamble to the U.S. Constitution). With sustained, pervasive unemployment comes social unrest (see any number of examples from the past 100 years). So ....
> The government spent a lot of money on public works projects to help put some people back to work. But this didn't do much to actually end the depression. It was the onset of WWII and the subsequent ramp-up to a war economy that really ended the Depression.
According to most economists (from what I've read), the New Deal was doing OK at getting people back to work until 1937, when the government suddenly cut its spending and raised taxes. That threw the economy back into recession.[1] And yes, the massive deficit spending of WWII did indeed pretty much take care of unemployment, and then some.
>The most basic task of government is to maintain a stable social order (see, e.g., the preamble to the U.S. Constitution).
I must say I don't see this language appear in the preamble of the Constitution. The Preamble outlines the purpose of the Constitution to "promote the general welfare" -- not to "provide the general welfare". All a reasonable, healthy government can do is provide a few basic structures for its people to build off of, it can't support the whole country (or really anyone) by itself. Unemployment is a governmental problem only insofar as governmental policy impedes useful production; anything else is pandering politicians attempting to dodge the wrath of an uninformed, slothful populace (because the politician likes prominence, money, and power).
Right, I'm not arguing the philosophical aspect of employing people for the sake of employing people.
However, laid off militants are likely to apply for unemployment benefits + whatever other entitlement programs they have. So in terms of pure numbers there might be some win, but when you cut $100 of military salary, you don't magically save a total of $100, you generate some liabilities on the other end.
All those military salaries also generate income taxes for Federal and state coffers, so now you've got lower revenues to deal with, too.
However, laid off militants are likely to apply for unemployment benefits + whatever other entitlement programs they have.
Perhaps initially. The military population in general is disciplined, educated (or even technically inclined), proud, and self-reliant. I've got to think that demographic is more likely to respond to unemployment by going out and doing stuff than any other.
That is an excellent question. I'm too lazy to search for the answer, but, with our luck, I'd say that the Defense budget is about evenly split betwixt personnel and hardware. Therefore, cuts to defense spending will cause unemployment for both defense contractor engineers as well as veteran grunts.
Taking over your laziness I found the 2010 budget. It doesn't really provide an accurate personnel versus hardware comparison but it looks like this:
Maintenance and operations 41.35%
Military personnel 22.5%
Procurement 20.45%
Research, Development, Testing & Evaluation 11.54%
Military Construction 3.49%
Family Housing 0.145%
Total 99.45% (I'm lazy too and rounded too much. Hey it's just 359.6775 millions that are missing...)
So keeping the lights on and the water running is 42% (there was a link that the Pentagon spends more on air-conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan per year than NASA's entire annual budget). Much of that cost must be due to maintaining offshore bases.
22.5% pays for the salaries of everyone from grunts to Joint Chiefs. I'll say that getting snazzy new hardware comes under Procurement, R&D, and Test & Eval. So, let's say 32%. That makes 22.5% versus 32% for personnel versus hardware. It's not parity, but it's in the same ballpark.
The biggest bite comes from maintenance & ops, of course. That figure has to include the cost keeping Navy boats afloat. No way to chop that down without also cutting down personnel. After all, if you cut the number of facilities by half, there will a lot less space for the personnel to stay in and fight from. Doing that has to have non-trivial effects on military readiness and the perception of potential enemies.
Theoretically, this problem can easily be solved: keep sending them paychecks. At least, they could be working on something productive like finding jobs or starting businesses.
Well at least if they live in the US the government does not have to feed them all and provide shelter etc... At home they support the economy of the US by buying things whit their salaries here. Soldiers at home are cheaper than soldiers on a battleground. Add to that lower amount of injured soldiers etc... That's also a cost when you factor in the medical costs on the battlefield with the need for quick transport to a hospital etc and future disabilities.
Problem is that, especially during the bush era, there were a lot of no-bid contracts to firms such as Halliburton. And we are obliged to make those payments.
Is it largely salary payments to current troops? Wouldn't we have to deal with a large unemployment problem in case we laid off a bunch of military employees and told them to go find a job somewhere else?
Or is it payment to defense contractors, such as Valley's own Lockheed Martin? Wouldn't this cause a large number of people to be unemployed, contributing to recession?