TheAgitator.com
Why Not Cut Military Spending?
Monday, February 8th, 2010Writing in Politico, Chris Preble of the (right-wing extremist!) Cato Institute and Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network debunk the bipartisan Washington consensus that military spending should always be off-limits to budget freezes. For a proposal so outside the Beltway mainstream, their action plan sounds pretty reasonable:
But ultimately, because our national security rests on our economic health as well as on the strength of our military, a liberal and a libertarian can agree that the Pentagon should no longer get a pass. Congress must stop funding projects to satisfy parochial domestic interests. The Pentagon must stop buying weapons systems that are already outdated, unworkable or both. And the administration must carefully define our vital security interests, reshape our grand strategy to more equitably distribute the burdens of policing the globe and reduce the occasions when our military will be called on to fight.
This one will be tougher to pull off…
For nearly two decades, Republicans and Democrats in Washington have deployed the U.S. military as a police force of first resort. Now is the time for a change.
We might also change the odd policy of not including war spending when calculating the federal budget deficit.
Wait! You don’t count war expenses in your budget?
And: do expenses against the “War on Drugs” count, too?
One simple thing could cut military spending.
It seems like there is always an “end of fiscal year” spending spree because they will not get as much money next year if they don’t spend all of this years allotment. Spend it all or we will not get as much next year.
How about letting them build up a bit of a buffer and then send the extra back with no change to next years allotment? Maybe give bonuses for not spending it all.
So are soldiers and marines in most cases. Liberals and libertarians don’t want to face up to the fact that 4th generation warfare is the province of the intelligence agencies and their spies and fighters, not militaries.
Of course, the authors just take it as a given that the US will never have to go to war against a country like China in which case we would need those “useless” F22s and new attack submarines because modern Russian aircraft are more than a match for the aircraft in current deployment and China has some rather powerful anti-ship missiles today.
Cutting or freezing military spending is unpatriotic and means you hate our troops.
Obama decided to change the policy of not including war spending in the budget deficit: to make it easier to meet his pledge of reducing the deficit in half, since he figured (wrongly it appears) that his war spending would go to zero.
If we agree with Radley, will we have to register in South Carolina as “subversives”?
That spending spree at the end of the year is exactly what we did in the Navy when I was in back in the 70s. It absolutely defeats any likelihood of budget shrinkage and very typical of the difference between spending your own money and someone else’s.
The corporations of the military industrial complex are the real culprits. They are the ones that over charge for the maintenance and repairs of equipment, billing congress for military grade nuts and bolts for everything whether they need it or not. That’s where the real waste is.
These corporations are taking advantage of American patriotism and exploiting the tax payer, which is remarkably unpatriotic. But point out that they are receivers of corporate welfare and screwing taxpayers, and the fiscally responsible conservatives switch gears to defend them.
The US Government is starting to sound more and more like the lazy friend crashing on your couch.
“Dude, my card’s maxed out…but I think I can get the bank to increase my limit, so party’s still on for Saturday?”
“It’s cool man – I have a special fund to pay back the money I owe you. The PS3 I bought came from a totally different fund.”
“I don’t see why utilities should count towards what I owe – they’re like, unavoidable things you’d be paying anyways.”
I’d hesitate to pin it on corporate greed. The government is an experienced buyer of goods and services. If it hasn’t developed the skills to procure military hardware without being screwed, then they need to do some serious housecleaning.
Hi Dave,
“That spending spree at the end of the year is exactly what we did in the Navy when I was in back in the 70s.”
It was still that way in the 90′s. I bet there has been no change. I was a junior officer and at first wanted to try and not waste money on stuff we didn’t need until my chief and the command master chief bought me a few beers in the Philippines and explained to me how things really work.
The military has the capability to pick, but it has a very big conflict of interest problem. Government salaries for top civilian and military people are a fraction of the private sector. A general earns about as much as a mid-level lawyer in a big law firm. Colonels etc earn even less. The brass can make big wads of $ once they leave working for contractors, as commentators, etc. Its a pretty big incentive to be generous to military contractors or Fox News as opposed to, say, the veteran’s hospitals.
I remember back in 1976, an ET (Electronics Technician) on our ship was repairing the surface search radar repeater (the radar is like a TV camera; the repeater is like a TV set). He needed a resistor in order to finish the repair. The particular resistor he needed was priced at $50.00, thru the U.S. Navy supply system, but was unavailable and on back-order.
He went off-base to a civilian electronics store (Radio Shack) and purchased the particular resistor he needed for $3.00 and tax…
Policing the globe isn’t and shouldn’t be the USA’s responsibility (financial/moral/etc).
Spending money just to spend it so that you use up your budget so you get the same, or more, next year is wrong. Anyone that carries out these actions, or agrees with them, is guilty of fraud.
China is such an awesome boogy man. Even better than the Russians since they are communists AND they look different than us. I’ll betchya the chances of us going to war with China is about as likely as going to war with the USSR in the 80′s.
It’s not going to happen. The only reason China has any economy is because we buy their shit. War will immediately bring that to an end which is why I don’t put a lot of stock in that scenario. Industrialized countries don’t wage war with other industrialized nations. We wage war against 2nd and 3rd world nations that we’re pretty sure we can defeat.
Fearing a war with China is as silly as fearing a martian invasion or an uprising of zombies.
The real reason there won’t be a war with China is they own our debt. If things get nasty, we won’t have an economy.
Yeah, and that’s what the capitalist theorists said right up until World War I happened. “The Germans, French, British and Russians are too integrated and dependent on one another to go to war.”
In 20 years, our debt will be bad enough that Congress will likely just “cancel it.” China will be angry at us, and our response will likely be “come and collect, assholes.”
And only a fool thinks that it would instantly go nuclear.
That’s a lot of speculation to be so sure of. Cancelling of debt, mutually assured destruction, etc. Careful who you call a fool.
Citation also needed.
Mike @18
“In 20 years, our debt will be bad enough that Congress will likely just “cancel it.” China will be angry at us, and our response will likely be “come and collect, assholes.”
And only a fool thinks that it would instantly go nuclear.”
And how would they get their army over here? And would they have enough ships to take the bodies back home? Without going nuclear, no one has any chance of invading the US, unless we let them. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.
Might be a little hard, since we’re talking about predictions…
#20
China is expected to have a blue water navy as powerful as ours by about 2020.
Mike T you’ve convinced me. The military needs to get more of the money I earn. RIGHT FUCKING NOW. How can I sign my entire check over?
In fact I’m going to start a letter campaign writing all of my representatives petitioning them to redirect all domestic funding to the military.
Once the military is getting 99% of the budget (gotta set aside 1% for overhead) we can finally go to war with EVERYBODY. We’ll defeat them all and set up a one world government like star trek with replicators and shit.
Then we’ll get around to patching the pot holes in the streets, right?
“Cutting or freezing military spending is unpatriotic and means you hate our troops.” /end sarcasm right?
Guido: you need to register in South Carolina.