The last quarter saw a 22% reduction in defense spending, which is the largest quarterly drop since 1972, during the wind-down of the Vietnam War. That, combined with mayhem caused by Superstorm Sandy, caused the economy to contract at a 0.1 annual rate. Basically, the Bush wars have been serving as a form of economic stimulus. Massive government spending on war has kept people employed. This is nothing new. The economies in England and the U.S. contracted when World War Two ended. And then they took off.
Anyone who is complaining about a disappointing fourth quarter should ask themselves if they want to live in a country where economic growth is dependent on a permanent state of war.
Good point.
It’s also worth noting that military spending is a significantly weaker job engine than other kinds of government spending.
Well, we can’t tell my locals that cause they won’t believe that the military doesn’t provide the best economic stimulus. Our paper is filled everyday with the coming negative economic fallout from sequestration, vis-a-vis the Air Force base 25 miles down the road and in another county. It is the largest employer of civilians in the entire state, private or government.
Cutbacks there are gonna be felt locally and we’ve already lost a lot in this urban county just to the north of that one. This county to our South has been riding along on a vibrant economy and an altogether viable public school system, which is the observable byproduct of having a military base in one’s county. Defense cuts are gonna really hurt there.
Not that I don’t agree that somehow we can’t permanently live in a country perpetually geared for war. But here’s the title of the weekly newsletter from my Tea Party Congressmen who’s been gerrymandered to be my permanent one until and unless Republicans lose control and there’s a new census.
Sadly, where military spending is cut, jobs are lost. I can’t argue with that.
Would you say that pretty much wherever spending is cut, jobs are lost?
No. I wouldn’t go that far.
How can that be? Makes no sense at all that I can come up with.
Why not? There’s nothing special about defense spending that makes it any different from any other kind of government spending. If your business involves contracts with the government, and those contracts are cut, you are going to lay off employees and the economy will suffer. If the sequester goes through, it won’t just be defense contractors that will be affected, it will also be universities and hospitals.
I don’t think every expenditure of the government creates a job anymore than I think every tax cut creates a job.
Taking a pallet of a billion dollars in cash and dropping it in Baghdad isn’t as job-creating for America as taking that same pallet and dropping it in South Central LA.
Where’s the “like” button here? š
We’ll get the Republicans attacking each other over the sequester — those backing old fashioned Kensian stimulus, if only through military spending, vs. those that want to drown the beast, even if that beast turns out to be their favored pet. Just like the way David diaper-boy Vitter came out attacking Marcombover Rubio over immigration reform.
POPCORN! GETCHYER POP-COARN HEAYAH!
” … ask themselves if they want to live in a country where economic growth is dependent on a permanent state of war.”
I sure don’t, but that’s the country I’ve been living in nearly my whole life, and a lot of people are just fine with it.
Sadly, altogether too true.
Problem is, somehow those military cuts never get put into something useful. We’ve had alleged “peace dividends” that were going to enable us to halt out national decline in just about every measure of a civilized society, but those bonuses just dissipate into nothing. The deep deficits that the Reps alway manage to create function to sop up any funds that might have threatened to enable government-led progress.
It would be nice to think we could begin to rebuild our infastructure. Lord knows there is enough to do on that front to keep us busy for some time. Let us get a Dem House in 14
A Manhattan Project dedicated to alternative energy development would be a nice change, but I’m not holding my breath.
“Defense” spending is a propaganda term. When was the last time the U.S. military was used for defense?