Posted by Tom Knapp at Kn@ppster:
Glenn Greenwald elaborates on just how friggin’ big and bloated the US “defense” budget is over at Salon. My shorter version:
The US spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on “defense.” It spends six times as much as the next-largest “defense” spender (China), and 29 times as much as the six top “rogue states” (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) combined.
And let’s be truthful here: US “defense” spending is mostly just a gigantic corporate welfare program — a way of redistributing wealth from the taxpayer to the politicians’ corporate cronies (and if a few hundred thousand people have to die every few years to keep the gravy train running, no problem as long as most of those people are evil, swarthy furriners). The actual national defense requirements of the US come to a small fraction of the amount spent under that label. Politicians and corporate welfare queens like the label because they can call anyone who objects to spending under it “unpatriotic.”
If Obama was serious about a discretionary spending “freeze,” he’d include the Department of Defense in that freeze. If he was serious about balancing the budget, he wouldn’t stop there, either. He’d propose a 25% cut to DoD over the three-year “freeze” period, and ask for a much larger cut over a longer time period.
So, now we know Obama isn’t serious.
“…… when I say “defending the country” I mean protecting United States ……. from attack,”
Lake: and it is generally agreed that defense is easier and more economical that offense. It is called the Department of Defense for the last six plus decades.
Make District of Columbia a County of Maryland. Remove Alaska and Hawaii and the territories, every thing but the lower 48. Then see the massive, massive difference.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/48972.html
I notice people are leaving the CA.LP because of Barnes, so what is the update of Mr. Cohen status then?
Don’t forget that much of the defense budget is not just corporate welfare, but pork piled on top of the military’s request by Congressmen who need to keep that factory running in their district regardless of how useless the product would actually be operationally. There’s a reason Ike called it the military-industrial-congressional complex, though too many forget that last part.
It would be interesting to see a study of how much defending the country would actually cost. And when I say “defending the country” I mean protecting United States territory from attack, not ensuring that Shiite Iraqis are able to rule over Sunni Iraqis or paying off dictators to pretend they like us.
I will work with any Libertarian, Tom Knapp included, if they are honest, polite and fair.
That’s all I ask.
Nobody has to agree on single issues.
Bruce,
I suspect you’re correct that if you and I each wrote a number on a piece of paper representing what we thought the Department of Defenses’s budget should be, the number you’d write would be higher than the number I’d write.
I’m glad we agree that the current number is too large.
Even an especially expansive definition of “defense” — for example, a definition into which some operations that Mr. Cohen supports and I oppose would fit — doesn’t call for the kind of spending that we currently see.
An incredible amount of “defense” money is spent in ways that virtually guarantee enormous waste — no-bid contracts, cost-plus contracts in which cost overruns from estimate are routine and oversight is lacking, etc.
I suspect that even just tightening up on contracting and procurement would produce tens of billions, perhaps as much as $100 billion, in annual savings without any reduction in manpower, scope and tempo of operations, etc.
I personally am not sure if I was President, what level I would want the Defense and Military budget to be.
Probably higher than Mister Knapp.
But I still agree with Thomas.
This is just catering and posturing to the middle votes, that’s all.
Obama is assuming his base, and going after the middle, as political math tells us to do.
Unfortunately, he has no underlying principles or goals, so that particular political math formula doesn’t apply as well with him.
Everything should be on the table with no third rails or sacred cows.
My thoughts exactly.
Absolutely right about defense spending. If you exempt that, medicare, medicaid, social security and other mandatory spending, like interest on the debt, you are now talking about freezing less than 25% of the budget. I suppose it is a start, but it’s not a very dramatic start.
Unfortunetly Republicans would call any freeze, or cut of defense spending as making Obama “weak” on foreign policy. Obama is always trying to appease his Republican opponents on practically every issue Democrats pretend to care about.
I agree with you 100% though. Defense spending is the EASIEST and the FIRST thing that could and should be cut/froze.
Obama is not serious about cutting. All these spending freezes hardly pay back 1% to the debt. It’s just a way to get those of us who talk about spending and the national debt to shut up.