As the US has been battered with natural disasters, the costs of aid are soaring. Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria are projected to cost the US economy nearly $135 billion, and the recent California wildfires will cost $85 billion. All this combined is $220 billion which is minuscule compared to the $700 billion the country will spend on its military in 2017. According to this Huffington Post article, Congress appropriates 70 times more money for the military as it does for FEMA ($700 to $9.9 billion). This difference in money that Congress dedicates has led to costly outcomes. First, in Puerto Rico, 85% of people still don't have electricity and 40% don't have running water. These stats are extremely high as Hurricane Maria started nearly a month ago. Another outcome of only $9.9 billion going to FEMA is that many firefighters have worked for 70 straight hours at minimum wage. Though natural disasters are inevitable and its hard to bring communities who experience them back on their feet, it seems that $9.9 billion may not be enough money.
How do you believe the US can better prepare for future natural disasters? Do you believe that military spending should be decreased and that natural disaster relief spending should be increased?
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10 comments:
According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, we already spend more money on defense than the next 8 countries combined. I think that just by going off of that insane fact alone, we can see that the US can definitely calm down with its military spending and allocate some of the money for the people affected by natural disasters. The House recently approved of a $36 billion package for hurricane and wildfire relief which is a great step towards assisting the affected, however, I feel like this kind of aid was way overdue. By focusing on other issues such as fighting Obamacare or North Korea, the government hasn't been really treating the natural disasters a priority. Whether it's helping the victims of the hurricane season or those affected by the wildfires in NorCal, the government should really step up and try to concentrate on the safety of their citizens first, rather than focus on the military.
Obviously, the topic regarding how much the US Federal government should be spending on military expenses is a controversial partisan topic, with Republican leaders strongly advocating for higher military spending. With the current leadership in government, of Republican majorities in Congress and a Republican president, the status quo is likely not to change. Nevertheless, I would like to point out a flaw with the image accompanying this blog. It greatly overexaggerates and dramatizes the gap between military and natural disaster funding simply by manipulating the scaling of the y-axis. In addition, I don't see the source of that image, lending me to doubt the credibility of the graph. Finally, I believe it is important to take into consideration that US military spending doesn't just go towards ensuring domestic security; rather, US military aid goes to support countries all around the world, offering protection from other hostile parties such as radical Islamic terrorists or rocket men in North Korea threatening South Korea and Japan.
With a modernizing culture of america, it is not necessary to sped so mush on the military. Thought in large scale terms, the military kills people and FEMA saves people. I don't understand why it's a difficult choice. Where does this 700B go? Into drones? Into tanks? Into surveillance? My thought is this money goes to the Military Industrial Complex, used to perpetuate a killing machine. Rather than killing or enforcing international law, the United States should help people domestically. To prepare for natural disasters places such as Puerto Rico need better infrastructure, backup generators, buried electricity, proper water piping. It seems like such a simple trade off: cut military spending to ensure domestic safety.
When looking at military spending compared to GDP, America is not excessively high. Many countries spend a higher percent of their GDP on their military, so they should be criticized for excessive spending before us. While America spends a higher percent than most modernized countries on defense, we also have a unique burden to provide all of those countries defense, something that is commonly disliked, but never changed. As to disaster relief funding, representatives from both parties seem to be willing to allocate funds, so this is only an issue of congress taking excessive time.
Like many commenters before me, I believe that the American spending on the military is excessively high, especially when compared to other vital functions of the government, such as natural disaster relief and prevention. Before I continue, I admit to be a bit confounded by Harrison's comment; I thought the issue was that the percent of our budget allocated to defense spending is excessive, not that we spend too much compared to our GDP in comparison with how much other countries spend compared to their GDP. I don't wish to cause offense, I just do not quite get it. In terms of disaster relief, I firmly believe that we need to spend more on disaster relief and that FEMA ought to have a larger budget. The need for more spending on disaster relief is self evident, and one needs to look no further than the suffering of Puerto Rico. Honestly, I don't think any representatives really oppose this spending, but it alone is not enough. An angle that cannot be overlooked is the importance of preemptive action, of ensuring that we are logistically capable of dispensing aid and reducing damage. Helping preemptively reduce damage is also cost effective; to use a clumsy metaphor, it costs less to fireproof a house than to rebuild it. It may be difficult for people to shell for the nebulous potential threat of something happening, but failing to do so can have deadly consequences.
Previous comments, like the one from Miguel suggested that America spends an unreasonable amount of money on our military. By bringing up the GDP figure, I was arguing that the amount we spend on our military is not out of proportion, and compare to some countries, quite small. Military spending is only loosely related to disaster relied funding, and I was only pointing out that America's relief funds are not being "chocked to death" by a ridiculously big defense budget. We still have plenty of money to give to the victims, and even if we didn't, the military wouldn't be the cause of that.
The military is far more than just "war," so phrasing military spending as "war spending" is a bit deceptive on those taking a quick glance at the article. I have no problem with the percent of money spent on the military because I acknowledge that the military is far more than just war. Only 15 percent of individuals serving in the army and marine corps are in combat roles. Non-combat military roles serve as a life-changing experience for many youth, giving them job experience as well as an education they may struggle to get otherwise. When we talk about cutting military spending, realize that the first things to go aren't going to be our military equipment, but rather the funding towards the education of these young men and women, the allowances provided to them to readjust to civilian life, and the benefits military personnel's families enjoy.
More to the point, the military does plenty of humanitarian missions as well (Operation Unified Response is an example among many others). To say that we're just using this money to kill people instead of help ignores such humanitarian efforts of the military.
I don't disagree with more disaster relief to be clear. But when we begin pointing fingers and oversimplifying our military's role, I question how effective our criticism is. The military is always used to compare costs, and I think it's irrelevant given what I've explained above. Yes, more relief money! But don't use this as a club to bash military spending.
Although part of me agrees with most of the above comments that military spending is quite high, I don't think that spending is necessarily "excessive". Like Austin mentioned, military spending isn't only to provide a "killing machine". Military spending also accounts for GI Bill, benefits of military personals, veterans, and more. There were about 2.2 million people in the military, both active and reserve, in 2010, there are probably more now in 2017. If you calculate the amount spent on each individual and on needed supplies, the military spending isn't excessive. On the other hand, it is true that we need to pay more attention to natural disasters. The spending on natural disaster relief should definitely be higher. But one thing thought that fills my mind is, if there weren't so many natural disasters in the past few months, would we be paying attention to the spending put forth for relief?
I think the big issue here is that we as a country might need to reevaluate what our disaster relief budget has to be in the future in order to accommodate the number and severity of the disasters we've seen this year. I recently read an article in the Scientific American on a similar topic, but with the focus that the US ought to increase their health emergency fund. I recognize that it is difficult to plan for a point on the budget that can't exactly be planned for; no one can predict how much money we will need to combat natural disasters from year to year because no one knows what natural disasters will occur, but I think the main takeaway is that what we have planned for isn't enough and that we need to adjust our perception of "the worst case scenario" and plan for that.
(luckily I found the link: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/robust-emergency-fund-needed-to-respond-to-future-disease-outbreaks/)
As a libertarian, I'm all for slashed budgets (can't have a tax cut without slashing the budget!) However, as a citizen of a country with military bases and armed personal in multiple foreign continents, I'm most for slashing the department of defense, by fifty to sixty percent. We spend more money in military expenditures than the next ten countries combined. Six of those ten are allies. As we have a strong national guard, 101 guns per 100 people, an extensive intelligence community which can read into any phone or computer on earth (Hi, NSA! I know you're reading this!), and seven thousand nuclear weapons to deter foreign powers from an invasion, I personally don't think that military bases half a world away will help with the defense of American shores. I'm also not sure why so much money is being invested in an Air Force Base in Hamburg or Kaneda while American citizens are as of the time of this writing recovering from a Category 5 Hurricane. I don't think we should slash veteran benefits or humanitarian aid by the US Military. I just think the good people of Puerto Rico struggling with ruined infrastructure and the good people in West Virginia in the midst of an Opioid Crisis without healthcare or children and adolescents living in poor communities receiving a sub-par education and a lack of federal grants deserve the money more than the Chair Force.
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