Getting Out In Front
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has laid out his plan for reducing the $700 billion annual defense budget by about $50 billion. Free lunch aficionados should rave over his plan. Panetta says fifty billion out and no change in our defense capability. I wonder whether other Cabinet members can do the same?
The route to this reduction rests upon reducing Army headcount. With Iraq over and Afghanistan on the downward slope, common sense could lead anyone there. Never the less, national security is a hot political button and the last thing Democrats want is to be doing something responsible and get blamed by the GOP for weakening America’s defense. It doesn’t matter that the GOP will be exhibiting gross hypocrisy since their charge won’t be true and reducing the deficit is a main part of their campaign platform. But can the American public see this?
If Americans thought about defense spending, they would conclude something quite different. First they would slash far more and second, they would demand foreign countries support financial our defense expenditures because are designed to help assure world peaceful order. Foreign contribution have a snow balls change of taking place.
Had Secretary Panetta proposed deeper cuts, however, there would have been a huge Congressional backlash. Forget about Newt and Mitt, just about every Congress member would have been up in arms. And national security would not have been the reason. Defense means money.
The annual $700 billion stimulus “defense” authorization funnels to each State and almost every district a lot of money. This spending means jobs and profits for industry, and generous campaign donations for the Congress members. Do you get the picture?
Secretary Panetta has made the first move. This will allow Congress members to question (gently) the wisdom of his cuts, hmmm in such a dangerous world. Congress can then agree that Defense has given enough (maybe too much) and move onto other spending sources.
The Washington rhetoric often is heated but when it comes to government corporate welfare, that is a line Congress members do not cross. Money that ultimately greases their campaigns is fundamental.
With a defense budget about equal to all other countries combined, and 10 times greater than the next largest, logic does not enter this equation.
This entry was posted on January 27, 2012 at 11:37 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Politics, Republican Party. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: congress, defense department, defense spending, gop, leon panetta, mitt romney, newt gingrich
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