This topic discusses the current state of our nation's defense budget and the changes that might need to be made in the best interest of our country's safety and military's wellbeing.  I settled on this topic because an ongoing debate has been going on in the country about whether or not to increase or decrease the defense budget.  Our country will be for better or for worse depending on what our leaders decide to do about the defense budget.  Searching for information on this topic was relatively easy, as a lot of government websites and organizations had information on it.  For example, the Department of Defense has a lot of information on deals and decisions made on the defense budget.  The research for ILP's showed me that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that decreasing the budget does have benefits and validity but that there is still many reasons to have it increased.

I am interested in this topic because it is an ongoing debate in the country and has a big impact on a lot of people.  I am also a Midshipman in the Naval ROTC unit here at the University of South Carolina, and will be a Navy Officer when I graduate, so the state of the defense budget is of a lot of interest to me because that will have a big impact on my future in the Navy.  With that being said I would agree that I am a stakeholder in this issue, and definitely have a vested interest in it.  The defense budget is not only used to buy bombs, guns, planes, etc. but it is used to pay our military personnel, fund research and development, and give our military resources to help people around the world so the decision to cut the budget could change more lives than I feel people realize.

I would say that this topic relates to the fact that I believe us as a nation should be able to effectively defend our country especially in the face of terrorism like we are today.  Without proper funding we won't be able to defend ourselves from rising threats from countries like China, or North Korea.  On the other hand our country's economy is in rough shape and a very large part of our money does go towards our military so there I can see how the debate has gone on and how it is hard to come to a clear decision on the topic.  As a Midshipman in the Navy I came into this topic with a strong opinion that the defense budget does need to be increased, and that the funding for it now is not enough for us to continue to effectively operate our military.  I am determined to avoid bias as best I can during the writing of this essay.  I can do this by taking looks into both sides of the argument by looking at the topic from a economical point of view like the President or Congress have to.

I don't know a lot about how the whole budgeting process goes, which is something that I am going to have to research while doing this essay.  I need to have a good understanding of how the budgeting process works in order to make a good argument since that is at the heart of this topic, so that is something I will have to investigate.  I am hoping to also investigate what the key points of both sides of the argument are and which side of the argument makes the most sense both economically and defensively.  

With this argument I hope to convince people reading it, that maintaining our defense budget should be a top priority and that cutting it could have big repercussions and make it hard for us to be able to defend our country effectively from threats.  Even though there is a large amount of information concerning this topic I do think it is possible to make an effective argument in the 8-10 pages allowed.

In the sources I've found one big argument that has been made is that the current budget deal that has been made does not guarantee further funding past two more years.  This puts our military's funding in jeopardy because a lot the programs that are going to be needing funding are programs that are going still be underway in two years.  This makes it hard for the Department of Defense to know which programs they're going to be able to keep and which ones they are going to have to cut.  However the other side thinks that more than enough funding is going to the Department of Defense and says that more budget deals will be made when the time comes.

As far as "Scope" goes, I feel this research question topic does well considering that the question restricts itself to the Department of Defense and not the entire government.  It also doesn't cut itself too short by not allowing for enough room of an argument.  With it concentrating on the Department of Defense it allows for room for a large enough argument while not making it such a broad topic that it would take forever for information to be properly presented.

With "Complexity" I feel this topic question does well, considering the many different aspects that fall into deciding budget cuts and the different possible consequences either way, whether you lessen the defense budget or enlarge it.  There are also many differing reasons for the different opinions on the topic whether or not to cut the budget.  This also covers "Controversy" as well when discussing the large amount differing opinions on the topic, but also how high up our government this topic goes, which is all the way to the top at the presidential level.

 
