Reply #14: The "grocery store" comparison is a false one [View All]

[IrateCitizen]

A much better one would be comparing a person who made $30k in a year, but donated $3k of it to charity. Compared with a person who made $100k, but donated $4k of it, who one is more generous?

The question isn't how much each nation spends in straight dollars -- the question is how much it gives in aid as compared to its MEANS. Since the US is, by far, the wealthiest nation on the planet (WRT straight GDP), it's a no-brainer that it should give more in straight dollars than any other country. My question, which remains unanswered, is how it can be considered leadership in this area when it is capable of giving so much more?

But I am not opposed to military spending. I believe that the US military is the most powerful in the world, and for that reason we have a responsibility to wisely govern our procurements and deployments.

Are you, or have you ever, been in the military? How much of this spending do you think works its way down to actually preparing a force to meet the real threats out there -- as in paying the soldiers and providing top-rate training -- and how much do you think is swallowed up within the military-industrial-congressional complex? I have no problem with spending money on a military that is proportional to the true threats we face combined with peacekeeping missions. However, I DO have a huge problem with flushing some $400 billion (and that really doesn't include the full bill, which ends up at about $650 billion) per year down the black hole of the Pentagon. And FWIW, I know this first hand, because I am STILL in the military.

As for your last paragraph, please tell me where I ever said that Democrats were less interested in foreign aid than Republicans. Of course Republicans aren't interested in foreign aid (other than military aid) -- their entire philosophy is based on selfishness over "being your brother's keeper". Of course, the Democrats have not been traditionally interested in the latter to a large degree either -- it's just that they aren't anywhere close to as bad as the Republicans in this area.