Posted on 03/11/2013 6:56:26 PM PDT by SkyPilot
I don't use the word "defense" much when talking about the federal budget because it always prejudices the conversation. U.S. military spending isn't always defensive; it often is appropriately offensive and changing the name in 1949 from the Department of War to the Department of Defense should go down as one of the top 10 greatest public relations achievements of all time.
So why did I violate my own rule and use the word "defense" in the headline to this post? To make a point: In spite of all the spin and all the warm feelings Americans supposedly have about the military, Congress was more than willing to throw defense spending under the budget bus in the sequester. When it was a question of tax increases and Medicare reductions vs the Pentagon, not only did the Pentagon lose, but it wasn't even on the field or the same game.
It's important to note that this big time defeat came in spite of a large campaign by military contractors to limit the impact of the sequester on the Pentagon. For much of the past year, one of the military community's most powerful organizations -- the Aerospace Industries Association -- spent millions on a highly coordinated effort that included studies showing the projected job losses from the sequester reductions. Many of the largest and previously most powerful companies repeatedly went public in a big way about the layoffs they said they might have to implement if the sequester went into effect.
And several of Congress' previously most influential members on military spending and policy -- think Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a previous GOP presidential nominee and a former prisoner of war -- wasn't able to come close to convincing his colleagues that the Pentagon sequester reductions shouldn't happen.
There have been indications that that military spending is no longer as sacrosanct and untouchable as it has been in the past since August 2011. That was when the sequester was included in the debt ceiling deal between the White House and Congress and the GOP decided that it vastly preferred an automatic cut in the Pentagon to the automatic tax increase the White House proposed.
That preference was reaffirmed in November 2011 when the anything-but-super committee failed to come up with a deficit reduction plan than could have prevented or limited the military spending reductions. That failure triggered the sequester that included the Pentagon cuts. The GOP then decided in the fiscal cliff deal in January 2013 not to insist that military spending be protected. Instead, it chose to keep the sequester -- including the Pentagon reductions -- in place rather than agree to a larger tax increase.
But the key tell occurred several months ago when the Aerospace Industry Association let it be known that it had fired the outside lobbyists and public relations consultants that had been hired to prevent the military portion of the sequester. AIA said that it wasn't stopping its efforts, just shifting the work to its own staff. That was a clear sign that the military community had realized that it wouldn't be able to stop what was coming.
What a difference a few months make.
GOP: Obama doesn’t ‘understand or care’ about impact of defense cuts - August 21, 2012
I guess pro-military Conservatives will just stay home from now on. The Democrats are godless Communists, and the Republicans are Judas.
B.S. The Military budget should be cut.
Wouldn't that be a dream come true for you.
The marxists have already split the Christian wing out, the minorities have been split off, and now if they could somehow split the military from the Republican party, the destruction would be complete.
"Most people are unaware that sequestration is only the most recent of several blows to our military in the past two years. Cutting fat is one thing, but cutting military muscle is not wise. In January 2011, the secretary of defense made the decision to reduce the size of the Army by 27,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 20,000 Marines. These cuts do not take effect until 2014 and 2015, so the military will be absorbing this troop loss at the same time they are dealing with financial cuts discussed below. A post-war drawdown is necessary, but always traumatic for the military. Thousands of good people are forced out of the service, bases must be closed and new weapons systems cut back or eliminated. But the irresponsible cuts from sequestration, and the continuing resolution that Congress and the president have imposed on the military, amount to piling on."
Just let the military close the bases they want to close and ax the weapons projects they don’t want anyway and they’ll do just fine.
The Republicans have made a stark choice: they have betrayed the military they once revered and have thrown them in front of the moving conveyance.
Sequestration punishes the noble (i.e. military) the most, and exempts the "takers" who are the biggest drivers of our debt and deficit.
That is what you are proposing.
Guess what Obama will do with that?
Moreover, when the DoD told Congress it is not a simple matter of "reprogramming" dollars, that was true. We are halfway through the fiscal year. The military must cut Operations and Maintenance by huge amounts to satisfy the magnitude of these cuts.
Even if the Senate approves the FY13 CR, it will only restore some O&M money, and the language of that bill makes the Sequester cuts permanent.
Wonderful.
I wish that those of you, who are going to react negatively to SkyPilot (and now me) and what he is trying to convince you of, would just stop and realize the one simple fact about what you're doing:
You are enabling and supporting the Marxist in Chief of achieving his ultimate goal of bringing everyone in the USA to same level of income and stature, to kill the middle class and breed class warfare so as to inflame the nation in order bring about a socialist order.
I hope you are proud of yourselves......
I said, let the military decide what bases to ax, and what weapons systems to cancel.
We can’t afford to defend the world anymore. I’m not proud of that. It’s simply a fact.
We have worse problems than the gross number of dollars we dump on the military.
Here we have a fool in charge of the Pacific navy forces who thinks his job is to defeat climate change.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2995875/posts
And you want me to enthusiastically back spending money for that? Show another picture of a solder being hugged by her family. Maybe that’ll change my attitude.
I’m with you. What portion of the military budget is used to support anti-American groups? What portion of the military is currently anti-US Constitution? Support for a no questions asked, blank check for the military is not patriotic.
I agree with you to the extent that the military are taking the brunt of the sequester. I believe that there is probably some wiggle room in their budget; there is in every budget. It's obvious that Obama is going to refuse to cut even the most worthless non military program just out of spite.
The choice was either continue our self destruct sequence or stop it. There was no third choice that I am aware of.
I think they should have cut his water off a long time ago. The only positive is that Obama has been exposed for what he is.
Oh come on, “we have to keep spending gubmint money or quasi-government workers will get laid off”? We roll our eyes when liberals make that excuse, but it’s okay for us?
Whether or not a policy “creates a job” should have ZERO bearing on whether to continue that policy.
What do we have to show for our trillions in military spending? A messy Iraq and Afghanistan where the prez accuses us of colluding with the taliban and where apostasy is a capital crime.
IOW, not much.
Pains me to say it, but thousands of Americans died in vain.
But by all means let us continue to spend trillions.
I guess I am an anti-American Marxist in your eyes though.
We are doing no such thing, we are advocating minimal government, responsible use of tax payer dollars, an end to rent-seeking, and minimal intervention in the affairs of other countries.
One can have adequate defense for a lot less money. It is the OFFENSE spending we object to.
Funny, militarists advocate big-government solutions to problems, but I’M the “marxist-enabler.” Me, the economics nerd and passionate advocate for free markets and diehard critic of socialism.
I was stunned and saddened to see so many defense industry people sell their souls to the African communist Ubama to help the little scumbag with his propaganda campaign to confiscate yet more taxes from American citizens. Ubama didn't want to confiscate more money from the private sector to fund the military - - he wanted the dough to continue growing the socialist welfare state, ie., the Democrat party's scheme to hand over "free stuff" to its base of moochers and parasites in exchange for their votes.
The sequestration gambit was put in place by the African communist Ubama because he thought he could use it to extort more taxes from American citizens in order to grow the socialist welfare state and thereby grow the Democrat party’s base of moochers, bums, deadbeats, and parasites. The correct response to the scumbag was, and remains, “No, you scumbag.”
Congratulations to the Republicans for calling the scumbag’s bluff.
If Americans want their national security improved, and if they want a strong military, then they will vote OUT the rats and vote IN conservative Republicans who take the defense of the nation seriously. If Americans continue to vote for the party of “free stuff for moochers and screw the military”, then I suppose America is no longer a nation worth defending anyway.
I agree that the military should be subject to reasonable cuts that are done with forethought and managed over time.
Please read the article I posted in #4 and again above.
What people fail to understand (even here on FR, much less our general public) is that the military has been sacrificed.
The military is under a triple fiscal assault: Sequestration, the 2011 cuts of $487 Billion, and the Continuing Resolution shortfalls.
As the author of that piece (a former naval officer) opined, Congress and the President have been "piling on."
The bravest, most noble institution in American has been mauled the hardest, and the fiscal tragedy that is being visited upon the US military will grow more ominous every single day from now on.
Hannity and other misinformed serial repeater propagandists will tell us over and over again this is about "White House Tours" and "only a 2.4% cut." The military is being systematically destroyed. Obama is an evil man.
The Republicans are traitors.
From now on, I will refer to the traitors by their proper middle names:
John Iscariot Boehner
Paul Iscariot Ryan
Eric Iscariot Cantor
However, I also agree with others that we do have vital interests overseas. Israel, for example, needs our assistance, although my concern for her is more from a Biblical basis than militarily. Genesis 12:3 says, "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." If America turns her back on Israel, we are completely doomed as a nation.
And Middle East oil fields need protection until America can become completely self-dependent upon our own resources, and that can be done if the oil fields weren't all declared natural wildlife refugees by the wacko environmentalists.
But, you know, everything that is happening was predicted a few thousand years ago and so we won't be able to stop the slide towards obscurity, moral depravity and eventually (probably) civil and social upheaval.
It's going to happen, and O could quite possibly be the great enabler to see that it happens. If that's the case, all we can do is stand by, helplessly, and watch the destruction of a nation we all love(d) because people are too stupid to see what their choices are enabling to happen.
The first Men in Black movie had a series of lines that went like this:
James: Why not tell people, people are smart.
Agent K: A person is smart, people are dumb panicy animals and you know it!
Class dismissed.
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