Tea Party candidate taken behind the woodshed by an old man asking a simple question

[Heywood]

Our military is built -to a t- for police actions. Not might, not a modern war, not for a threatening deterrent. It is equipped and trained to do one of two things. Impose the will of a regime, or topple that regime. We keep picking on little desert countries and then puffing our chests "See, see how mighty we are! This is the sort of power that all of this funding buys!" - it's theatre for the worrisome. Truth of the matter, is that "imposing the will" bit and "toppling the regime" is actually what's been buying us all this "goodwill" abroad for awhile. Our military, by it's mere existence, does not grant us any magical immunity or deference. This is why we could have a better military (for doing all the stuff we do, the stuff that gets us that cred we seem to like) while spending far less on said military.

A lot of military spending is not on actual tanks, bombs, and guns but on people costs. Medical benefits, retiree benefits, wages(we pay our soldiers very well compared to other countries). Contractors are required to pay their employees a prevailing wage. If a new building is built on a base, the construction workers get paid government prevailing wage....but on the budget it shows as a capital purchase...not an expense on personnel. In many ways the DOD is being utilized as wealth transfer vehicle....a social program.

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The fact is we do benefit greatly from seigniorage largely because of our military.

Imperialist warmonger.

Seigniorage comes from stability not from waging wars. The US government is not likely to be toppled anytime soon. That is one of the reasons the US dollar is the world's reserve currency and the Iraq Dinar isn't.