[kristopolous]

I'd like to have meaningful public discussion befitting of the size of these financial commitments.

For instance, there's occasional debate about defunding public broadcasting, which costs 0.013% of F35 + wars. Planned Parenthood is 0.018% of this. Even the often hotly contested NASA is 0.62% of this.

A few years ago, congress was in heated budget debates - trying to knock off PBS to save a buck - but a plane that cost 48,743 times that was never brought up for discussion.

Even if you span these budgets over the 20 years of the F35 program, something like planned parenthood cost 0.4% as much.

If we can find the time to talk about X as a huge waste of tax payer dollars and have legislation to defund it, surely we can find time to talk about something that costs 25,000% more than X.

However, other than an occasional news article and grumble of discontent, nothing actually happens. It moves forward unabated. That's a problem.

[devonkim]

DoD projects are modern Public Works projects since they tend to employ people outside big cities in manufacturing jobs that aren't supposed to be outsourced. The instant you try to criticize DoD spending as media or a politician, you are branded as anti-American and you're pushed to the fringes.

[wrong_variable]

I do not understand why its not possible for those same engineers/workers making planes to became teachers/proffesors ?

It seems such a terrible mis-allocations of resources since those same brilliant people could help the next generation learn and progress.

Or the simpler explanation is that Americans do not value public higher education as much as they value their global hegemonic position.

[devonkim]

Manufacturing facilities in the US employ only a few engineers compared to forklift operators, truck drivers, machinists on an assembly line, and construction workers. Most people in the US cannot be employed in high demand fields that require more education than just a certificate and some hands-on training for a couple months under an apprenticeship kind of system.

Secondly, teaching jobs in the US are extremely hard to come by and have such poor pay that most people in manufacturing would do better in the same communities by looking for factory work.

As it stands, most of the "brilliant" people that are motivated enough simply leave these areas for bigger metro areas and the typically rural communities that make up a very large portion of the US's population and area suffer brain drain. Over generations, this flight becomes culturalized resentment for those trying to better themselves and there is strong pressure against people from leaving. Hence, one of the strongest values among rural people here is "nobody is better than anyone else" and any hint whatsoever of arrogance is extremely chastized. The irony that this is surprisingly close to what liberals fight for in the US politically never seems to register (much of politics in this country is really strange but primarily racially divided or based purely upon economic standing at this point rather than upon actual political views - most black voters are actually conservative and most poor rural whites would vote Democrat if gun control was relaxed, for example).

Anti-intellectualism is very strong in the US compared to most countries in the world and needs to be examined much more closely than other factors IMO.

[reality_hacker]

These types of debates are going for few decades already. 1,3trln is joint air-force budget for next 80 years (since F-35 is intended to cover 90% of all air-force/navy/marines air tasks), includes not only 2500 highly sophisticated vehicles them-self, but maintenance, and probably training and weapons, and covers 50% of national security problems in modern world. I think 1.3trln is moderate price for that.

[kristopolous]

That's cool. I guess warfare and killing people just ain't my thing.

[reality_hacker]

Maybe thinking about your kids future is your thing.