Quote:
Originally Posted by sailaway21
Uhh, Val?
Defense spending get's us something we cannot get elsewhere. Ethanol on the other hand is merely the current popular alternative to drilling oil wells. And oil, unlike equipment for defense, is something we have an abundance of.
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Defense spending in many countries is the product of industry lobbying and collusion with politicians looking to get pieces of the action for their constituencies. Which may not be a bad thing in the greater scheme, except that the process is largely opaque and cost overruns seem expected. There is also the tendency of the defense industry to sell the military on the glamour of unnecessarily complex weapons systems taking decades to reach fruition, which is what leads to $137 million (and counting) single airplanes, like the F-22. Meanwhile, the 50 year old B-52 continues to fly, and the cheap, armoured if unglamorous A-10 seems to handle the dirty end of the blowing stuff up business.
There's too much wiggle room, and Eisenhower was right.