Can we take on the Socialists who have increased U.S. defense spending from $286 billion a year to over $700 billion a year over the past 7 years first?

Just to show we're really anti-Socialistist...not just partisans fighting over the government teat.

That is the one area of the Federal spending that is actually mentioned in the Constitution.

So I don't think that is actually socialism. It may be wise. It may be unwise. Socialism it is not.

Defense spending is no more "Constitutional" than Welfare spending, farm subsidies, Social Security, or a national health care system, if American voters elect politicians to put one in place.

We're a democracy, after all...

alphie,

You meant to tell me that when Congress voted money for ships to fight the Barbary pirates under the Jefferson and Madison administrations that it was unConstitutional?

Who knew?

Quite the opposite, M.

It's all Constitutional.

Alphie, military spending may be be big government, but it's not socialist, which proposes to support some by depriving others of their property rights and liberty. Defense spending is a concession to government in order to protect the rights to life of the citizens who are paying for it. There is a reason the political philosophy the nation was founded under is called *limited* government. Socialists see no limits.

Further, Alphie, just because the Supreme Court arbitrarily declares a practice Constitutional does not make it Constitutional in fact. Marbury vs. Madison was just such a grave error.

Wall Street bankers, Oil company executives, defense contractors, corn farmers, etc. all have plausible arguments why their government pork is vital to a functioning America.

Either you're against all Socialism...or you're just an unpaid shill for a particular government-funded industry.

So this is where alphie ran off to....
He'll tire of being ridiculed and spanked and eventually go somewhere else I suppose.

I do want government to stop subsidizing industries and Big Agriculture: we are a grown up Nation now and don't need those. When I see millions going to 'farmers' living in Key West, then I see something that is not just socialism, but rampant corruption. And as the founders put down that limited government is the best government and that representative democracy needs to highly representative to work, I support a Maximum House at 1:30,000 so that the 'many eyes driving out bad code' can be put to the test in running government. And eliminate the staff for Representatives so they actually have to manage their lives just like ordinary citizens.

Then defend the Nation starting at the border and heading outwards... and enforce every single solitary law to the max that Congress has passed and then hand the bill over to Congress so they can see what their lovely ideas of profligate lawmaking has done to change this from a nation where the rule of law is supreme to one where the law of rules renders everything that can be done illegal and worthy of having money, goods or one's life confiscated. And particularly enforce them *on* Congress.

This Nation had fair warning in the 1787-89 timeframe by the discussion amongst the citizenry about what the end of republics and democracies looked like... and those that warned about certain unchecked powers of government have been demonstrated to be prescient in forecasting factionalization, disenchantment and the slow loss of liberty while those in power gather more power to themselves over time. This is *not* a socialist phenomena, but an artifact of what happens when the quest for power over-rides the idea of governing for the common good. America is not only *not* immune, but only now hitting the testing period of some of the longer republics and democracies that cracked up due to the slow sucking of power into the larger government and out of the hands of local government and the people.