Want to cut the deficit? How about the giant Sacred Bull in the room?

All this clamor over raising taxes on the wealthy, and cutting spending for social security, medicare and medicaid.Yet not a word is spoken against the huge, wooley mammoth (more like a Bull here but WTF) standing in the center of the room.What about the U.S. Defense Dept that is bigger than the rest of the world combined? Seems like no member of congress wants to mention DOD spending. Is that who writes the largest political campaign checks?When it comes down to austerity and where to pare down the budget spending, WHERE’S THE BEEF?It’s where it always is, sitting in the middle of the room. Yet no member of congress dares to breathe a living thought against it.

via What about the giant elephant in the room? – Democratic Underground.

And if you are worried about the jobs lost from one of our major products nationally, ie weapons and weapon systems here is a response:

There would be some job losses in the defense industry if real cuts were made – I am talking $500bn+ of annual cuts. (Not the tiny $24bn in the fiscal cliff as it stood.)

You could cut the current Pentagon budget of $105bn a year for 7,000 “contractors” still in

Iraq.
That works out at $15 million per job.
I wouldn’t be adverse to losing those 7,000 jobs. Not if it means saving most of that $105bn. They are probably blackwater merceneries.

You could massively cut the $170bn currently spent on building and supplying foreign bases.
The building of foreign bases employs a lot of foreign native workers – not Americans.
If you brought the 138,000 military currently stationed in Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK and Italy home – your supply costs would go down significantly.

Similarly stopping the war in Afghanistan would save $88bn a year. It wouldn’t mean job losses (well a tiny amount maybe – you wouldn’t buy so many bullets).

Cuts to the US defense budget does not affect exports.

America had 79% of the global arms trade in 2011.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175592/engelhardt_monopolizing_war

The defense industry currently receive special tax breaks. They are also making record profits. You could cut the Corporate Tax break – that wouldn’t cost jobs.

Also labor costs for the arms industry are about the lowest proportionally of just about any industry and the LEAST productive economic activity.

E.G. You create three times as many jobs for every dollar you put into education compared to every dollar put into the arms industry.

If you want to create jobs – you don’t spend your money on the arms industry.