Sociopath Community

FOTS said: 

How about we cut military aid packages to every other country. That's billions and billions of dollars saved.

The total foreign aid seems to be on the level of $50 billion while the total military budget is about $700 billion. Cutting aid would lower costs, obviously, but it's not like that will help offset the massive amount spent on the military.

So, I'm proposing alternatives for you to use when you have conversations about the US's debt:

1. Cut gov spending by 1% across the board for everyone (except schools and hospitals)
2. Each year, cut gov spending 1% across the board and increase spending 1% each year to select and extremely valuable agencies (schools, select research, hospitals, infrastructure)
3. Rather than drastically cutting military funding, demand restructuring of the organizational structure. This is too get rid of middle management and fix problems with overpaying employees that do low skill jobs.  Then demand a system to be enacted that requires internal audits of the efficiency of use for materials and for use of funding AND for efficiency of organizational structure. We should be demanding a flat organizational structure.

All of these points assume the main problem is each government agency is simply bloated and inefficient. It also assumes this is a uniform phenomena across all agencies. What makes you think this is the case?

I also don't understand what exactly you mean by a 'flat organizational structure'. If you get rid of vertical structures (like middle management) the level of expertise from people in the organization will have to be increased. Is the US sitting on a massive pool of unused highly-skilled labor?

It's also not at all clear that flat organizations (even if you have the appropriate know-how) is always better than hierarchical ones. Simply saying "we should just get rid of middle management" is not much more serious than calling for a huge military budget cut if you're looking for good results. You may however be right that it'd garner more traction in the senate (because a lot of Republicans favor government spending cuts regardless of whether quality goes up or down). 

Cut all military funding to other countries. (I cant think of a single country where this money works in our favor). Then cut all other types of funding to all countries until they prove that they sufficiently meet a set of criteria that identifies why the aid is necessary. (This is to help stop wasting money on aid that isnt going to good use anymore or doesnt have an appropriate reason for aid in the first place)

So you don't believe your aid to Israel, the only democratic country in the Middle East, helps your cause? Or what about your support to Ukraine? That money is directly used against Russia.

Of course there's corruption and a lot of wasted money too, but I think you underestimate the amount of soft power you get from strategically important foreign aid. If I were the US I'd flatter both Eastern Europe and East/Southeast Asia much more than you do.

FOTS said: 

We have .No Way. of knowing if that money goes to good use

We do know that a lot of the money we sink into our military doesn't go to good use, so how about we start with what we know? l0l

On a more serious note though, it seems like you assume that benefiting other countries must not benefit us just because there isn't an immediate and obvious return of some tangible support. International relations are a little more nuanced than that.

Inquirer said:

Is the US sitting on a massive pool of unused highly-skilled labor?

Yes.