The budget cut that dares not speak its name
The budget cut that dares not speak its name
The far right wants to slash government spending, but the left wants to save things like unemployment benefits and create jobs by spending on our infrastructure needs and alternative energy, and a lot of people in the middle want to do both. Actually, this is one dilemma that's ridiculously easy to solve.
The Atlantic's Joshua Green explains how:
So it's odd that the largest category of discretionary spending has largely escaped scrutiny: military spending. In January, when President Obama proposed a three-year freeze in discretionary spending, he pointedly exempted the military. Last week, a bipartisan group of legislators and policy experts asked an important question: Why?
The group, The Sustainable Defense Task Force, encompasses the political spectrum -- from Barney Frank, on the left, to Ron Paul, on the right -- along with a host of military reformers. They share a belief that unrestrained military spending is a danger to the budget, and to the country. And they make a persuasive case that we can spend less without sacrificing security.
Today, the United States spends more on its military than during the height of the Cold War. The Soviet Union no longer poses a threat, yet we continue to spend huge sums protecting countries in Europe and Asia. This defense subsidy allows Europeans to provide a level of social welfare far in excess of what the United States offers its citizens. If Germany, France, and Britain bore more of their own defense costs, US tax dollars could go elsewhere, or nowhere.
Of course, Green goes on to explain several reasons why this isn't happening. But probably the biggest one is that, as the author Chris Hedges spelled out in the title of his book a few years back, war is a force that gives us meaning. I was thinking of that the other day when -- prior to President Obama's widely panned speech on the Gulf oil spill -- some pundits like MSNBC's Joe Scarborough said Obama should give a speech similar to JFK boosting the space program in 1962.
I don't think that could work. Several presidents, starting with the ever-popular Jimmy Carter, have suggested weaning the United States off of imported oil as "the moral equivalent of war" -- but that never works because for most people the only valid equivalent to war is...war! Think back on JFK and the space program -- the American people ralled behind that not just because of the science and the splendor but because it was a new front in our ongoing war, the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
Pretend the 1960s space program had never exisited, and Obama tried to create NASA today.Can you imagine the uproar? Another government boondoggle! Billions of dollars to give high-paying jobs to pointy-headed liberal scientists from Harvard and Berkeley! The Tea Party would go nuts -- unless maybe the space program was sold as a way to locate bin Laden from orbit.
America's emotional attachment to its war machine remains just too great. And the moral equivalent of war -- whether it's cutting the budget or alternative energy -- can't compete.
I'm curious, maybe somebody can answer, China is now drilling of the coast of Cuba, if they have an accident and lets be honest communists dont give a s**t about the enviroment whats going to happen then?. BP is an easy target what will Obama do if something happens with a Chinese platform.— PAEnglish- I say we start a war on liberalism.... liberalism and political correctness is a cancer on society and needs eradicating.— PAEnglish
PA, China may be nice enough to write down some of our debt.— RG
Comment removed.- Comment removed.
- RG.. they are more likely to give you the finger and carry on drilling. Bill, he will probably tell the chinese its really America's fault and appologize for their well leaking, then bow.— PAEnglish
China is not drilling off the coast of Cuba, that is one of Sarah Palin's "facts". http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/06/11/40776/gop-claim-about-chinese-oil-drilling.html— Les Ismore- Even Bonnner is backing way from Barton. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/06/boehner-asked-whether-bp-fund-is-a-shakedown-seeks-distance-from-barton.php?ref=fpa— Les Ismore
- Repeat, you can hardly compare those two together, at Kasserine untried GI's came up against veteran troops, with better tactics and better equipment. We found in WWII first get rid of the french millstone from around your neck, then start your war. The result in WWI we lost 4.5 million killed, wounded and missing keeping the frogs fighting, in WWII we got them out of the way first, fought a longer war and kept our dead down to half a million.— PAEnglish
- Les Ismore China is not drilling off the coast of Cuba, that is one of Sarah Palin's "facts". ... hmm really Les? http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2007-02-22-cuba-usat_x.htm http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/19479/Cuba_China_Drilling_for_Oil_50_Miles_from_Florida_Shores.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196891,00.html http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/09/news/economy/oil_cuba/index.htm Perhaps you need to read more— PAEnglish
- http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/are_the_chinese_drilling_off_the_coast.html— Les Ismore
- Perhaps PAEnglish needs to read more also. http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/are_the_chinese_drilling_off_the_coast.html— Les Ismore
- Hmm Les I give links from a liberal source, a conservative one and two independents, you provide two from a wildly left wing ones .. theres a reason of course, Obama stops deep water drilling in the gulf, China, India dont and drill fifty miles of the coast of Florida. And since apparently according to CNN a chinese rig will be of Cuba the end of this year we shall soon see.— PAEnglish
While I am against having tax dollars pay for the mess in the Gulf, it could be agrued that the U.S. Government has a legal responsibilty to the residents. Using the first WTC bombing as an example in which the U.S. Courts found that the Port Authority was responsible for their negligent failure to prevent a terrorist attack and held the Port Authority financially responsible. Despite any argument that the Bush administration stripped away regulations there were regulations in place and the general conduct of the Mineral Management Service could be viewed as a negligent tort.— bird11- umm Les the link you provided in dated june 26 2008 .. perhaps you need not only to read more but buy a calender— PAEnglish
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