But what if we DID put military spending to work to benefit our nation?

[Victor_c3]

13. I'd love to see significant cuts in our military spending

As a veteran, I've seen first hand the waste produced by war. I'm grateful that I served in a first-rate and well funded military, but the dollar cost of war is staggering - and that doesn't even take into consideration the longterm care of our disabled veterans (which many people in government are reluctant to fund).

I'm amazed how as a country we can pull money out of the woodwork to fund and expand the scope of wars, but we can't do the same thing to take care of our own people. I'd argue that large-scale wars like WWII are a thing of the past. The major powers in the world are too busy trying to dominate each other via trade.

If China were to go to war with us, what would happen to their economy? They are so dependant on the US (and Europe) as markets for their manufactured goods that they'd be ruined financially. Don't forget that they have trillions of American dollars in their cash reserves that would instantly become worthless to them. What would that do to their currency that is pegged to the value of a dollar?

2012 DOD spending is estimated to be about $707 Billion. If you adjust the military spending of Eisenhower's last year as president to 2012 dollars, he spent $400 billion on his military - and that is a military that he deemed large enough to defeat the Soviet Union! So why do we need to spend so much money on war if we don't have adversary like the Soviets anymore?