The ever-lasting fiscal crisis in the United States

While I am not a politician or economist, by any stretch, I have held the notion, for about four years now, that our government's fiscal situation would take a good step in the right direction if some of the 'discretionary spending' was more evenly spread out or reduced. I still believe that today.

Here are a couple of reasons why:

Importing low-cost goods is not always a good idea. 

Going back to the days of George W. Bush, this is one of the causes that Bush not only doubled, but tripled, the U.S National debt. The low-cost is compelling, but, in fact, sometimes other countries place tariffs and quotas on imported goods. I'm not saying Obama is continuing this, (in fact I think he is not), but I don't want to see the U.S National debt take another spike like it did under the Bush administration. At this point it would be much worse than fatal, which this situation already is.

The U.S is not in a big-time war right now.

This is not the 1940's or the Revolutionary war. I understand the need of spending for military purposes and I'm all for spending on it when it's ideal and it has to be done, but it isn't exactly a 'need'. If military spending was a need, I think it would likely have been considered as an entitlement along with medicare, medicaid, etc., at least five or six years before Barack Obama took over as president. The United States accounts for 39% of the world's entire military expenditure. The same source says that at around the same time, global military expenditure is roughly 1.7 trillion. If you do the math, that equates to about $663B of military expenditures by the United States alone. 37% of the U.S Taxes in 2012 were spent for current military spending and cost of past wars.

I understand that the goal to "Balance the Budget" will be a slow-moving, long-developing, and tedious process, but as a country, we can't do too much at once. There are already entitlements that have to be covered, and if it is possible to not spend so much of the U.S taxes in one area, and 'balance it out' by putting more towards other expenses, such as interest on the debt, I think the economy, from a fiscal standpoint, would be better off rather than worse. It could then maximize the productivity of the spending that the country does and needs to do.

A few of the statements in this post are from the following source:

Shah, Anup. "World Military Spending." - Global Issues. Global Issues, 20 July 1998. Web. 12 Feb. 2014. <http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending>.