The ‘Red Dawn’ Case for Cutting U.S. Defense Spending – Businessweek

Despite its less-than-blockbuster performance, Red Dawn turns out to be surprisingly trenchant —though probably not in the way the film’s creators intended. In particular, the movie makes a powerful case for why the U.S. should take a sledgehammer to its military budget.

via The ‘Red Dawn’ Case for Cutting U.S. Defense Spending – Businessweek.

If you remember the original movie the US is effectively defended by a band of teenage drop outs.  So the question that comes up is why we need a roughly trillion dollar plus yearly defense budget. (I am including extras like the debt and war appropriations and other DOD expenses like the Drone program that are “off the books” black ops).

And the US public agrees:

In Harris polls since 2008 the percentage favoring defense cuts has risen from 35 percent to 42 percent. Of five areas of expenditure—Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, Medicaid, and defense—the military was only area where a majority (60 percent) suggested spending should be cut to reduce the deficit. In a YouGov poll, when asked if they would support a tax increase to maintain America’s current military advantage over rising powers such as China, only 30 percent of respondents suggested that they would—with 50 percent clearly stating they would not