We can cut the defense budget without cutting defense.

Air Force veteran here. I completely agree with cutting defense spending. I hate how people think if you cut spending from it that you somehow hate the military.

3:57 "Listen I'm not anti-military. I have camo pajamas. I lost my virginity while watching Patton." The most beautiful sentence I've ever heard.

He is so right. We could cut the budget in half and start paying off our debt. I worked for a contractor and saw so much waste in the spending. It's such a scam. The goal is to spend up the money buy the end of the fiscal year even if you don't need to so the company can ask for more from the government the next year.

"crony capitalism" goes by the name of Keynesianism.

We’re spending too much in the US all over! Period.

Andrew Heaton is gods gift to the world

We're not spending enough on defense. We're spending too much on contractors, unneeded weapons systems, bases overseas, wars with no real strategy, domestic bases and a million other things while training, pay and benefits for the actual men and women that serve and maintenance and repair of existing equipment suffers. Everyone in Congress wants a piece of the military/industrial complex for their home state or district. That is the real problem.

"Diminishing returns" pretty much sums it up.

I support cutting everything the federal government spends money on by at least 20%

"Defense!?" you mean "Offense?"

“I lost my virginity watching Patton” I’ve found it. I found how I want to lose my virginity

The problem is that we in the United States serve as the military for Eastern Europe, Japan, South Korea, and the Caribbean.

Hey, I work for one of those killy thing companies on one of those foreign non-killy bases! And I can confirm that the waste is amazing.... I have personally seen more completely unnecessary/unjustifiable waste than I will ever make in my life.

Down with debt... And entitlements

I'm so happy we can agree on this issue

Anyone with military background knows first hand how crazy the spending is.

This is my favorite segment on reason, it needs SO much more attention 😂

Fricking Kevin

this should be viral 🤗

I love his work. The libertarian additions of movies, tv shows are the shit.

600 Billion WTF? Yes what the financial, indeed!

"Does anybody really think Russia is at risk of getting invaded? Of course not!" Yeah, that aged REALLY poorly.

I miss you, Mostly Weekly ❤️ Best web series on the net...

As much as I love our military. We are spending wayyyyyyy too much. We should stop being the military of other country’s and force them to pay for their own.

I miss this segment so much.

As a veteran, I agree with this 100%. We spend entirely too much on, for the most part, junk. The problem isn't that we spend a lot. OK, we spend a lot, and yes, that *is* a problem, but that's not the issue here. The issue lies with lobbyists and no actual oversight on the companies that take contracts for our equipment. Ironically, it's capitalism that has bitten us in the ass here. Capitalism and cronyism. The way the system works now is that different companies will bid on different contracts such as who gets to make what equipment. Much like in construction, the company that bids the least gets the contract. Problem is, they're all bidding way too high to begin with, and because the market is so woefully small, they can get away with it. Much like the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these guys have a virtual monopoly on the MIC. Companies like Boeing, Lockheed, and others get contracts for the most mundane items like hammers and common tools, things we could be going to places like Wal-Mart for and buying for ourselves, but because they have that contract, we can't. We *have* to use the hundred dollar piece of shit hammer Boeing provides us because some shady assholes in some back office in DC shook their greasy palms. The problem, in a word, is mass corruption in our government, and both sides blame it on the other while both are filthy in their involvement. The last guy claimed he was going to drain the swamp, but from where I sit, looks like they need a bigger bottle of goldbond.

As a libertarian I would like to piss off both sides. That's why we need to cut entitlement and defense spending. Joking aside, we really need to stop spending money on useless killy things. We could close down 80% of our overseas bases, reduce our armed forces by 80% and still be just as safe and still have enough money left over to keep our military fully stocked with killy things for many years to come.

only 600 billion? what about that 2.2 trillion that went disappeared in Pentagon on 9/10 2001

That whirring sound you hear is the sound of Eisenhower spinning over in his grave.

Remember other countries don’t pay their soldiers.

Navy Vet and full blown Libertarian here. Mostly agree. While I do believe you spend way too much on useless bases, and spend way to much on equipment and vehicles we don't need more of. The issue with the Military isn't that the budget isnt big enough, its issue is that its to inconsistent. Commanding Officers do not know how much to spend and on what for their locations because they're not sure what the next years budget is. so they spend as little as possible through the year, then rush everything they have left towards the end of the year after they find out the next years budget. We can easily close dozens of bases, cut defense spending by 10-20 percent, and still increase efficiency and overall defense. The one thing i do somewhat disagree with here though is the idea of overseas bases. We are the Free World's number 1 defender, we are not just responsible for our own defense but the defense of our allies around the world. This is the shaky subject to where we have to decide does having a base in a allied country make them safer, and at the same time think about what they day about the US to the public and argue why are we defending those who attack us in a different manner. The US has 4 true adversaries. Russia, China, Iran, North Korea. Our military and its bases should focus on the best defense and counter offensive on these countries and there possible allies alone. We would be even more affective in combating these adversaries should the need arise, as well as save billions on top of it.

The focus of topic should be " how to spend the defence budget more wisely", not just "oh the numbers are so big so we should just cut it by half".

Cutting the budget means trimming the waste from _every_ sector. Some sectors could use serious cutbacks, but _every_ sector could cutback something.

Then we wonder why the country is struggling internally economically.

The big problem is that a large defense budget actually makes us weaker. Modern military might is closely tied to economic strength. If the defense budget grows too large, it stifles economic growth. This in turn stifles our ability to defend ourselves. A small defense budget is a problem as well. If we don't have enough defense jobs, trained workers move to other fields. Then, when danger looms, there are no trained people to design new weapons. It's a balancing act. So when the military says it doesn't want something, maybe take their word for it?

It is also not just the spending but also the corruption that goes along with it. Russia spent a ton of money on “defense” in order to become the second best military . . . currently fighting in Ukraine.

I'm definitely gonna add 'Fillintheblankistan' to my vocabulary

Dont cut the budget. Train our military employees to do actual work instead of hiring private contractors and paying them double what the military makes.

It's not the biggest thing... Social security, Medicare, Medicaid, department of education, and other social welfare programs are more than 3 times that.

it's not "defense" it's offense, because all we do is export war to other countries 9-11 was 20 years ago, no one is threatening our freedom other than big corps and paid for politicians

Half of the money spent is probably lost in bureaucracy.

Yes, yes, we've all heard we pay more than X countries combined, but how much is that compared to OUR GDP?

There is the saying ”they will run out of bullets eventually.” That doesn’t apply to America’s defense budget. How else do you think we won the Cold War

I’ll be honest this is the one thing I’m glad my taxes go to, I do think we spend a little much, but I do think we should have the most spending on our military.

It's mostly about politicians wasting money. and politicians wasting money on over priced contractor killythings

Congress was cutting spending on what we need while refusing to stop funding what we don't.

Fill-in-the-blank-istan!!! XD

Good case you've made. Did not know too much about this before, thanks

The United States Armed Forces needs to modernize while keeping within a "reasonable budget"....because I'm not for excessive waste, fraud, and abuse or our Armed Forces being world cops.....

Feel so sorry for all hard-working tax payers, a lot money is wasted.

This is the funniest oversimplification I've ever seen

3:20 “French Arkansas” AKA Quebec. LOL!

Russia spends less only in absolute terms. However as a % of GDP Russia spends more money on military. Its not America's fault Russia has a shitty economy. Russian economy is the size of Italy's economy. How many are surprized that America can spend more money on military than Italy?

not even a Kevin spacy Joke ages well anymore

I don't have a problem with a big ass defense. I got a problem with a big ass offense that goes to random countries every couple of years. It might as well be called the offense budget at this point

Our spending is insanely ridiculous!

I wanted to be mad at this guy for what he was saying but I was laughing too hard. Not fair play guys! LOL

Britain dominated the seas by basically spending as much as they needed to defeat the next two largest naval powers at the same time. I think we could probably set our budget the same way if we were better at effectively designing things.

Still tiny compared to social security.

My favorite show in here

At the end of every fiscal year my dad said he had to waste money to make the government happy. That's the issue

Ah Patton. George C Scott has driven more dudes out of No Fap streaks than any other thing.

So we spent on the CARES act in total more than 10 times what we spend on the military in a year, which was nominally supposed to be 1 month of compensatory money for the economy being shut down.

If one includes "international assistance" (e.g. USAID), we have gobs of spending that could be axed & should. Funny how even most Democrats brought themselves to vote for the recent NDAA. The BCA was supposed to limit this out-of-control spending. In prior years, Congress used OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) as a slush fund to avoid the caps. Now they're just flipping taxpayers the bird, they do NOT care. Here are some items we could cut in our Pentagon/Defense budget & have enough to upgrade our Navy: We could end the nuclear triad (delivering nukes via bombers, land-based silos & submarines) by delivering a nuke (if needed) by subs. End our relationship/subsidies to NATO. We don't need to protect Europe from Russia or ISIS. Europe is wealthy enough & has a large enough population to do it themselves. No more missile defense systems in Europe, unless Europe does it themselves. We don't need the United Nations, it should go. We don't need a large, massive, bloated *standing* Army. The Founders bristled at such a thing, it's way too large (our Navy is a wonderful deterrent--does it deter everyone? Nope, but it sure has the firepower to deal w/ a nuisance). We don't need all of these military bases in Europe & SK, nor do we need to assist Saudi Arabia in it's war w/ Yemen. Assisting Saudi Arabia is akin to assisting the Castros. They're evil. exit question: How many Carrier groups do we need to protect these United States (Not patrol the entire Pacific)? Maybe, just maybe if we did less "over there" trying to keep them from coming "over here"--less of them would want to come "over here" & kill people. Just some food for thought. PS, we've been on the Korean Peninsula since my father was barely walking--is it safer over there?

Same dynamic applies to criminal justice, education, medical, even NASA. Inevitable due to our 2-party winner-take-all political structure.

Government contractor here, one way the government can actually get money BACK to sort of balance out this military budget. Is to sell the excess military equipment to private citizens and allies. I have seen way too much military equipment, old outdated equipment, be just thrown away or scrapped. One way to help fix that issue is to sell these "scrapped" military equipment, to the private American citizen (obviously law abiding) or to allies. Two things will happen, we potentially will able to make (obviously approximation here) potentially 1 or 2/3rds of the spent money back; and any possible ally turned enemy will at least have our old technology that we already know how to exploit and be technologically ahead. Just a thought, if the government is going to balance anything in terms of a budget. They need to be SELLING BACK to the private citizens and allies, that is just my opinion though. I have seen way too much good equipment just get thrown away for me not to think that a better idea would be to sell this out to private ownership or other allies.

We have a trillion bucks for a shitty JSF but my units running around with 50 year old rifles smh. And were not even Marines

I do like how you guys play both sides!

its not defense... it offense

Does this take into account the fact that we have NATO deals and in deals that cost us money and require us to put bases in places

Trace of sharks or Kevin Spacey 😂

It's not about defending America , its about defending its hegemony

Answer? Make the the military "tri-service" and consolidate our logistics program.

Double it!

Defense budget does need to be fixed, but you completely ignore the purchasing power in each nation. The same labor, enlistsments, and gear in America is more expensive than in Russia or China. Also, do you really believe what they say when they tell you how much they are spending?

Close some bases? OK. Sell the land? NO! (what? So we can buy it back for 10X cost?

We love you Andrew

Although I agree that some money could be saved in the military I think this clip spent too much time trying to be "hip and with it" and not nearly enough time taking a real world acknowledgement of the global benefits that come from America's defense spending and global projection of power. The, "we don't have any enemies that are going to invade us" argument is simplistic to the point of being disingenuous.

Thing this video is right about: There is too much waste in military spending. Thing this video is wrong about: The "big wars" are in America's past.

We aren't spending money on defense We are spending it on offense.

okay, if splitting the defense budget in half is gonna get us a manned mission to mars, then im all for it.

I understand that we spend about $800 billion a year on NATO. That is over $2000 a year for every man, woman, and child in the United States. This does not seem sustainable to me. Since World War II, we have provided most of the military defense for Europe which has allowed them to build up their economies at our expense. Furthermore, they do not appear to be grateful.

600 billion per year?!? That’s almost as much as we pay in interest

That thumbnail though, right on the money lol XD

I am all for smaller government but when it comes to defense it is important to be able to whoop every country in the world 3x over. USA USA USA USA!!!

Hey, at least military spending is a legitimate role of government. Welfare and social security isn't, which constitute a way bigger part of the budget and the federal debt.

My only problem with what we spent on defense spending is how much we waste, I saw a report that we waste I think up to $150 billion each year on overpaying, bureaucracy and more, that I can't accept

I used to think we could increase our military spending by a bit before I read this piece from the LA Times: In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA (www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-story.html) Now, I think Ron Paul might be onto something.

Cut defense spending, yes, but there are a lot of things to go after first. The fed gov has a responsibility to defend the nation. Defense spending can be justified. There is a lot of spending that cannot be justified at all.

In 2016 the United States spent 16% of its budget on defense (605 billion), which is a huge amount of money no doubt. But if you want to address useless government spending in 2016 the US also spent 24% (916 billion) of our budget on Social Security, and 26% (1 Trillion) on health insurance subsidies (medicare, medicaid, CHIP, and ACA). Social Security is pretty much just a Ponzi Scheme, and heath insurance premiums are at all time highs in 2018.

I’m for a very strong defense while also cutting back on military spending in a wise way-not the way Obama led the military.

Oh, look! I'm in this one!

Sorry, but you have to include the VA @ 260B as part of the cost of war. Figures aren’t accurate without that.

As long as America protects Canada, it's all good in polar bear country.

I agree with the context that we shouldnt squander money. But at the time if this video our military had been decemated by obama. I believe the biggest problem to be paying way more than things are worth. Even well built custom "military" machines would be far less in cost if ordered from the private sector. So pay a fair price. End wasteful spending. And keep a strong budget to maintain a reasonable defense.

so "Fillintheblankestan" is amazing

Being the world police costs

You have no idea how bad it really is. The ludicrous over-spending even goes into things like price gouging food contractors on posts and things like that, where a crappy sub sandwich box lunch costs the American taxpayer $14.

We don't spend to much on defense; we spend to much on defending other countries.