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[Bauglir]

That IS why I called out the villainy bit, but mostly that post was to point out that "Carefully cutting funding so as to minimize waste without removing funding from the areas that efficiently stimulate the economy" is not a position that is different from "Cut military funding". The latter is just shorthand for the former.

[Frumple]

[...]its budget of $533.8 billion[...]

Honestly, this is the kind of thing I see when I think of military spending in the US. We could toss, say, three or four billion (Less than one percent of the total budget) into, I'unno, the g'damn schools, which are suffering budget cuts almost across the board, nation wide. I somehow doubt shifting <1% of military funding into education or infrastructure is somehow going to cause the US to fall from our position of absolute military power in the world.

Meanwhile, that three or four billion could fund several dozen (at the absolute least; I'm pretty damn sure the number is considerably higher, but I haven't checked the average operating cost of a public school lately, so I'm going for almost farcically conservative.) schools. Giving rough numbers (40k year salary, which is high in some areas), it could hire 75,000 teachers instead. Given class sizes nowadays (Saying 30, which is sickeningly normal and occasionally low), that'd give us teachers for >2 million students. So less than a percent from military to teach fairly close to the same percentage of the USA's total frakking population.

I'unno about other folks, but that sounds like a damn good deal, to me.

[Hitty40]

[...]its budget of $533.8 billion[...]

Honestly, this is the kind of thing I see when I think of military spending in the US. We could toss, say, three or four billion (Less than one percent of the total budget) into, I'unno, the g'damn schools, which are suffering budget cuts almost across the board, nation wide. I somehow doubt shifting <1% of military funding into education or infrastructure is somehow going to cause the US to fall from our position of absolute military power in the world.

Meanwhile, that three or four billion could fund several dozen (at the absolute least; I'm pretty damn sure the number is considerably higher, but I haven't checked the average operating cost of a public school lately, so I'm going for almost farcically conservative.) schools. Giving rough numbers (40k year salary, which is high in some areas), it could hire 75,000 teachers instead. Given class sizes nowadays (Saying 30, which is sickeningly normal and occasionally low), that'd give us teachers for >2 million students. So less than a percent from military to teach fairly close to the same percentage of the USA's total frakking population.

I'unno about other folks, but that sounds like a damn good deal, to me.

This.

[Nadaka]

[...]its budget of $533.8 billion[...]

Honestly, this is the kind of thing I see when I think of military spending in the US. We could toss, say, three or four billion (Less than one percent of the total budget) into, I'unno, the g'damn schools, which are suffering budget cuts almost across the board, nation wide. I somehow doubt shifting <1% of military funding into education or infrastructure is somehow going to cause the US to fall from our position of absolute military power in the world.

Meanwhile, that three or four billion could fund several dozen (at the absolute least; I'm pretty damn sure the number is considerably higher, but I haven't checked the average operating cost of a public school lately, so I'm going for almost farcically conservative.) schools. Giving rough numbers (40k year salary, which is high in some areas), it could hire 75,000 teachers instead. Given class sizes nowadays (Saying 30, which is sickeningly normal and occasionally low), that'd give us teachers for >2 million students. So less than a percent from military to teach fairly close to the same percentage of the USA's total frakking population.

I'unno about other folks, but that sounds like a damn good deal, to me.

Your calculations are wrong. The cost of educating 30 students is not the salary of a $40/year teacher. That teachers employer must also pay other taxes, insurance and benefits for his position. Then there is the cost of the classroom. Plus the cost of the utilities. Plus the student related costs (lunch, supplies, etc). Plus the administration and maintenance of the school. The total cost per 30 students is most likely well over $100k/year at a minimum.

[GlyphGryph]

Which still actually indicates a whole ton of good could be had by spending it on education instead, mind you, since that's still half a million kids for 10% of the budget.

[Frumple]

 

Rough numbers are rough, but seriously, it should get the bloody idea across. Also note that what I said used instead. Fund several dozen schools or hire 75k teachers.

Some numbers from federal funding to charter schools I picked up recent was 6k a head for students (in south florida), which, yeah, is about 180k for 30 kids. That extra 3-4 billion wouldn't be supplanting current funding, but adding to it.

Basically, let me put it this way. It doesn't cost 100 million to run a single school for a year*; including teachers salaries, maintenance of all sorts. 4 billion would run more than 400 schools. I think that would be worthwhile, given that it would reduce the military budget by under a percent.

I have trouble hammering that part hard enough, I think. Under a percent. Less than 1/100th of the military budget. In exchange, over 400 schools fully funded.

E: Just to re-emphasize, this while the US is facing an almost endemic education problem and almost every damn thing I hear from any teacher or person working administration in public schools is about running into budgeting issues. The US has an education problem. It's also the preeminent military power in the world. I could see giving a (massively g'damn) little from the latter to help with the former a bit.

*The 6k per student, assuming full funding, is 12 million for a 2000 student school.

[GlyphGryph]

Also important to note: You'd probably be able to employ a lot more people for the same amount of money in education when compared to the military.

[Nadaka]

Also important to note: You'd probably be able to employ a lot more people for the same amount of money in education when compared to the military.

Probably not. There are a limited number of students to service. There are a limited number of qualified teachers. Particularly ones willing to work in dangerous conditions for poor pay. Education isn't a problem that can be solved just by throwing bodies at it.

I would also note that schools are typically funded at the state level by property taxes. And it is the the property value collapse primarily responsible for bleeding states and education dry, and that has nothing to do with the federal military budget.

I'm not against education at all, but you guys are making bad arguments.

[Frumple]

Probably not. There are a limited number of students to service. There are a limited number of qualified teachers. Particularly ones willing to work in dangerous conditions for poor pay. Education isn't a problem that can be solved just by throwing bodies at it.

Maybe not bodies, but money would likely help, and th'USA's education systems are in a lot worse shape than their military (Best military in the world vs. not the best education.). That poor pay bit could be countered a little, if nothing else. More qualified teachers, too! We've also got freakish dropout rates in some areas, so, yanno', could probably be saving on some of those serviceable students. If teachers and staff had the funding to do some more extra, here and there.

I would also note that schools are typically funded at the state level by property taxes. And it is the the property value collapse primarily responsible for bleeding states and education dry, and that has nothing to do with the federal military budget.

Point being that some of that military funding could be shifted elsewhere. Just to help out, yanno'? Education funding going lower may have nothing to do with the military budget, but some of said budget could help arrest or slow the education drop.

I'm not against education at all, but you guys are making bad arguments.

Not even trying to give a properly statistically backed up one, at all, just giving some (really damn rough) numbers to kinda' put forth a more 'on the ground' picture of what some of that freakishly massive military budget could be doing instead. Points I'm putting forth aren't as solid as they could be, no, not at all, but even a bad argument can get a point across.

I don't think 'military could afford to get a little less money, schools could really use that stuff' is a bad argument, though.

[MonkeyHead]

What isnt a bad argument is that education is basically free. Explained far better to me by Prof. Dylan William (http://www.ioe.ac.uk/staff/DIRE_31.html) than I will probably explain to you, but feel free to google his work which pretty much proves the assertions below via a massive long term socio-economic study.

People with a better education in general earn more, live longer and tend not to overpopulate. As a result they in general contribute more to an economy through all forms of taxation and cashflow. Substantially more than an individual with a poor level of education - dont have the numbers to hand however. This taxation can be used to fund public services and the needs of a state such as armed forces, health care, education, etc. Heres the big deal - if you add up what a well educated individual pays into the state over thier lifetime compared to what they cost the state over thier lifetime, the state is signifigantly in the black per individual. For an individual with a poor level of education, they are very much in the red per individual. Logically then countries should be looking to make the maximum investment/effort in educating thier citizens that they possibly can.

How do you improve the educational level of a citizen? BUilding more schools is financially innefficient as then they need to be staffed and maintained. Similar for class sizes - you need extra teachers of at least the same quality as those that already exist.

To get a well educated workforce they need to be well taught. How do you manage that though is the tricky bit. A "good" teacher of 10 years experience can be shown to offer only a few weeks extra learning in a year than a "poor" inexperienced teacher. If teacher "quality isnt the answer, what is? Allowing teachers to focus fully on developing thier professional skills (networking to hare good practice and innovation is very in vouge here) is a good first step, as is removing the red tape from the job by constructing effective support networks to allow good teachers to focus on what they should be doing as best they can.

So, by investing in a system that allows for the continual professional development of educators what you develop is basically a feedback loop - put more money into the system, and get out more than you put in to it in the long term. Shame that politics usues education as a tool, leading to all sorts of bad practices such as wrote learning and "teaching to the test" just to get good scores.

Imagine what good a few billion diverted to education instead of "more guns" could do if more education systems in the world followed such a model...

Sources:

http://web.me.com/dylanwiliam/Dylan_Wiliams_website/Presentations_files/SSAT%20Annual%20Conference%20Breakfast%20talk%201.pptx

http://web.me.com/dylanwiliam/Dylan_Wiliams_website/Presentations_files/SSAT%20keynote.pptx

Big fan of that guy - read a lot of his work as part of my own research work, and seen him speak on a large number of occasions.

[Phmcw]

Not roughly at all, defense count for 24% of US budget, while education count for 4%.
So substantially raising education budget at the expense of military could be done without harming it too much, apparently.
Things could be a bit trickier than they appear but if reducing salaries, scrapping an aircraft carrier, slashing the number of soldier reducing DARPA expenses, and reducing soldiers could reduce by one tenth the military budget, then you could raise the education budget by 50%.
It's a matter of priorities of course, but...

[MonkeyHead]

A fair analysis would be to look at the current cost to income generation ratio of both sectors. I cant see a few billion off the USA's defence budget causing a massive drop in quality of life for many, whereas a few billion into education should have a large positive effect.

[GlyphGryph]

I would also note that schools are typically funded at the state level by property taxes. And it is the the property value collapse primarily responsible for bleeding states and education dry, and that has nothing to do with the federal military budget.

I'm not against education at all, but you guys are making bad arguments.

We are all well aware the feds are not putting much money towards education. It has nothing to do with what we are saying, and your arguments (sparse as they are) in defense of the current military situation are pretty weak themselves.

All we are saying is that the military budget you seek to defend has trade offs. Very serious, tremendously large opportunity costs.

There are currently just shy of 4 million teachers working in the US right now, with an average class size in the high twenties. Smaller class sizes are a significant boost to education, and if the funding was available to decrease those class sizes by half that would be 4 million new jobs in teaching alone - that's not counting the support staff. This is simply by "throwing bodies at it" until we get to a point where throwing bodies at it stops becoming effective. And, unlike the military, it's actually /productive/, and produces people more capable of getting jobs that will themselves help the economy. Something that the military fails to do by your own admission.

Hell, spend that money making it free to become a teacher - provide education education to all, and pay THOSE teachers well, and while we might not have more teachers we'll have a hell of a ton better quality teachers to choose from, which is worth it on its own.

Just throwing money at the problem is not a solution in and of itself, obviously, but most of the more effective solutions are going to cost a lot of money regardless.

And if we're going to waste billions upon billions of dollars each year, we might as well spend it on something that has a CHANCE of doing some good, don't you think?

[Duuvian]

29 Companies That Paid Millions For Lobbying (And Didn't Pay Taxes)

Here is the .pdf link mentioned in the story. The .pdf from Public Campaign

Meanwhile:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Huge U.S. corporations are forming lobbying groups to try to influence what could become the hottest congressional debate over comprehensive tax reform in a generation.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The uptick in lobbying activity follows a proposal two months ago by U.S. Representative Dave Camp, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. Camp, a Republican, said he wants a lower corporate rate, an exemption for overseas profits and other changes.

Four large U.S. companies are listed as the backers of the Tax Reform Coalition: American Express Co, Intel Corp Tupperware Brands Corp and Xerox Corp. They have hired a former lawyer on the Ways and Means Committee as one of their lobbyists.

[darkrider2]

Spending money on infrastructure nets a return in revenue to the government, something it desperately needs.

Spending money on the military nets security for the government, something we have ridiculous amounts of as it is and to throw any more at it would be completely inefficient.