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Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch
I think its a bit of both. If your spending a million dollars more then your making on your yearly deficit and the next year you manage to spend a million dollars less then in theory you should balance to a 0 deficit position.
However even I'm not foolish enough to believe that you instantly turn off the money taps of a war. Canada is going to continue to spend dollars on the Afghan war in terms of bringing equipment home, repairing, refitting and replacing worn out equipment. Dealing with veterans who are leaving the military and training their replacements and replenishing supplies and ordinance.
The hookers and blow example for me is that in a lot of ways war is like spending money on useless things in that you don't see any economic benefits to it that will cover the losses.
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Ya when those guys come home they are still going to be soliders. America will have to feed, house and pay them until their term is up. They will still need ammunition to shoot and gear to wear out. If they use less that that just means less jobs in the manufactoring sector. As the soliders retire out they will need jobs or else begin their secondary education with the government flipping the bill.
Military related manufactoring jobs have been some of the most stable throughout this economic down turn. It helps that the military uses American companies pretty much exclusively. The cuts will hit middle class workers hard.
As for Harry Reid figuring the country will save a trillon with the wind down of the 2 war; I think he is estimating high. I also doubt if the projected deficits for the next ten years don't already figure in an easing of military spending because of the wind down of the 2 wars. Even in the mist of the Iraq war the extra military spending was always treated as special and voted on separately. Either way there should be no problem taking 4 trillion out of the budget within ten years without counting what is already going to happen.