America can be a superpower or a welfare state, but not both.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Armistead

It seems with the cost of military comes the desire to constantly use it. Bush ran against Clinton's nation building and now we nation build through wars and constantly police the world. We're rebuilding infrastructure in other nations why ours crumbles. It seems the US must always pay the price. Wars alone cost us over a trillion. Let's face it, much profit to be made from war.

The cold war is over. Many of the platforms we have today give us very little bang for the buck. We spend more than the next five nations combined and to many that's not enough.

We could easily shut down over 100 cold war military bases in Europe.

No doubt the defense budget isn't gonna break us, but it must be on the table. My concern is constant wars and conflicts, why can't we mind our business. Our border is a warzone, let's protect it first.

The bigger welfare state is the bail outs of corporations that stopped working for americans long ago.

In a nutshell, war is a business. The defense industry is just that, a industry. Also, the US can not ignore what is transpiring on the other side of the world. These activites can and do directly affect the US physically or monetarily. These cold war bases have changed rolls in so much as the US is really the 'world police.' As some point out, these bases provide an economy for surrounding cities. These bases are forward fueling stops, etc. The US has many international interests for many reasons.