hogg@utcsri.UUCP (John Hogg) (08/22/85)
In the past few days, everybody from hawk to dove has been bemoaning the
tragi-comic state of our armed forces. I agree; all three branches need a
massive infusion of cash, with special fire-fighting attention being paid
to state-of-the-art icebreakers.
Now, for the key question: where's the money going to come from? The
right-wingers on the net (that's me, in this particular context) won't want
to further increase a massive deficit, and increased taxes generally aren't
popular. This leaves only cuts in existing expenditure. To the south of
us, we have the example of Reagan Hood, taking from the poor and giving to
the military. Is that what we want? Can anybody give me NUMBERS
indicating how, in the long run, they would come up with sufficient cash to
do anything meaningful? One-time fire sales ("Sell off Petrocan!") don't
count. Go to it; I defy anybody to make a concrete, feasible proposal that
even a majority of net posters will be happy with.
--
John Hogg
Computer Systems Research Institute, UofT
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsri!hoggacton@ubc-cs.UUCP (Donald Acton) (08/23/85)
In article <1341@utcsri.UUCP> hogg@utcsri.UUCP (John &) writes: >Now, for the key question: where's the money going to come from? ..... >..... This leaves only cuts in existing expenditure. I have a few very good candidates for cutting: 1) The CBC which costs us >$800,0000,000 (1983-84) However, I will knock this down to 720,000,000/year after the alleged cuts made last fall. 2) The Post Office >$300,000,000 / year. I realize that the Post Office is suppose to become self sufficient so this represents money that is being freed up for other purposes. 3) VIA rail according to the March 9th (1985) edition of the Globe and Wail receives an average subsidy of $87 per passenger and carried seven million passengers last year. This works out to $609,000,000. (If you can't trust the figures provided by Canada's self proclaimed national newspaper who can you trust?) This works out to 1.629 billion dollars of frivolous expenditures. As far as spending on national defence is concerned the only figures I have are for 1983 in which we spent $8 billion. The projected figure for 1985 was $10 billion. If we cut out the above programs we could increase defence spending by 16% which would be a non-trivial amount. > I defy anybody to make a concrete, feasible proposal that >even a majority of net posters will be happy with. >-- > Whether or not a majority of net people would support these proposals is questionable as everyone seems to have their own little pet government subsisdized service that they couldn't see touched. However, even if we only cut these by 50% we could still give our military quite a shot in the arm given the current size of its budget. Nothing says the money has to come from one place and I am sure someone could find a pet government project of mine to cut. If the government worked at it a little it should be able to find other areas to cut, after all I have already provided them with three areas. Donald Acton
jimomura@lsuc.UUCP (Jim Omura) (08/31/85)
As for unpopular ideas for raising money for the military,
how about these:
1. We all work harder, for no more pay than we currently get.
The net result is that our products on average become more
competitive on the world market and the increased tax revenue
grows *more* than the original revaluing of our work.
2. We keep PetroCan, but don't make it a haven for incompetent
political hacks. It'll pay it's way. CDC already earns the
government money. That's probably why Mulroney's gone silent
on that topic for now.
3. Lotteries (just threw that one in--ignore it, please!)
--
James Omura, Barrister & Solicitor, Toronto
ihnp4!utzoo!lsuc!jimomura