Name the last time an aircraft carrier won a battle, stopped an attack, etc. Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carriers cost 13~ billion dollars to construct and the bill for operating a carrier group: $2.5 million a day (based on a quick Google query).
13 billion is 325,000 degrees at 40k each or 260,000 at 50k each.
21 B-2 stealth bombers from Northrop Grumman in the 1980s and 1990s at a price of more than $2 billion each. 2 billion in 1990 is equal to 9.8 billion dollars today. That's 4-5 million 4-year degrees for what those 21 aircraft cost!!!
Also if you educate 100 people, the majority of them will provide benefit to the economy via any number of ways. The government already throws tons of money at educational institutions, but as research grants for military/defense research, why not educate the populace? For that matter, why not create government educational institutions that cut out all of the fluff and in upon completion of a program you enter into an income share agreement for 5-10 years at 10-5%.
> Name the last time an aircraft carrier won a battle, stopped an attack, etc.
The primary benefit of a large conventional military is to deter such an event from even happening. That said, the air support provided from carriers definitely helped a great deal to curb and reverse the spread of ISIS.
> Also if you educate 100 people, the majority of them will provide benefit to the economy via any number of ways.
If this were true, then it would be economically advantageous for those 100 people to borrow the money themselves (perhaps with the help of a government subsidy). And they do.
>The primary benefit of a large conventional military is to deter such an event from even happening. That said, the air support provided from carriers definitely helped a great deal to curb and reverse the spread of ISIS.
I'd believe that, a decade or two ago. The Global Hawk drone has a declassified record of 33.1 hours of flight time at 60,000 feet though for surveillance and doesn't have pilot fatigue as swapping out a pilot is as simple as "hey Greg,your shift is about over, stand up whenever you're ready and I'll take over watching the monitors".
UCAVs (unnamed combat aerial vehicles) are possessed by more than 20 confirmed countries. The United States as 2 publcily known variants, the MQ-1 since 1995 and the MQ-9 since 2001. The MQ-9 costs about 16 million dollars, can carry 750lbs of payload to 50,000 feet and fly for 30 hours or carry considerably more (like Hellifre, JDAM, laser guided bombs etc) for much shorter periods. These can take off from any sufficiently long flat surface, can be transported anywhere in the world in C-17s and honestly it wouldn't surprise me if they've devised a way to launch them out of C-17s.
As ISIS doesn't have fighter jets, there's no need to have fighter jets ready to take off to engage them. Aerial combat as a whole is effectively a thing of yesteryear.
Having a giant floating city in the ocean six-thousand persons simply isn't necessary anymore. Yes, we need certain types of ships for guarding ports and trade routes by aircraft carriers are gross overkill and largely the money-giving beast of lobbyists, politicians and defense contractors.
>If this were true, then it would be economically advantageous for those 100 people to borrow the money themselves
Except for the part where college tuition is outrageous, many many people do not qualify for government subsidized loans and interest rates on private loans can be outrageous and you could easily be servicing the loans for DECADES unless you want to live in a van with 3 other people.
> Having a giant floating city in the ocean six-thousand persons simply isn't necessary anymore. Yes, we need certain types of ships for guarding ports and trade routes by aircraft carriers are gross overkill and largely the money-giving beast of lobbyists, politicians and defense contractors.
The same could be said about traditional universities, especially now that, as you point out, they're so expensive that the cost is ruinous on a per-capita basis. I see no reason that this would change if the cost was borne by the federal government any more than the cost of the Navy would change.
13 billion is 325,000 degrees at 40k each or 260,000 at 50k each.
21 B-2 stealth bombers from Northrop Grumman in the 1980s and 1990s at a price of more than $2 billion each. 2 billion in 1990 is equal to 9.8 billion dollars today. That's 4-5 million 4-year degrees for what those 21 aircraft cost!!!
Also if you educate 100 people, the majority of them will provide benefit to the economy via any number of ways. The government already throws tons of money at educational institutions, but as research grants for military/defense research, why not educate the populace? For that matter, why not create government educational institutions that cut out all of the fluff and in upon completion of a program you enter into an income share agreement for 5-10 years at 10-5%.