Reading this Politico article this morning has really depressed me: “House GOP thinks unthinkable on defense cuts.” It reports: “A new breed of conservatives in the House cares so much about cutting spending they’re willing to extend that to the budget for bullets and bombs, too — in this case, by letting $500 billion in across-the-board automatic budget cuts over 10 years take effect, alongside a similar number for domestic agencies.”
This is crazy on many levels. Start with the policy implications: The Pentagon can’t afford another $500 billion of cuts on top of the $500 billion or so that has already been cut–not at a time when the armed forces must grapple with new missions such as dealing with the spread of al-Qaeda in Africa and an upsurge in cyber attacks.
President Obama’s defense secretary, noted budget hawk Leon Panetta, has said that sequestration would be a “disaster” with “a devastating effect on not only national defense but I think on the rest of the country.”
This isn’t to say that it’s impossible to make any cuts in defense. Former Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy has some good suggestions in the Wall Street Journal for cutting bloated headquarters, eliminating unneeded bases, making military medical benefits less generous, and paring back the civilian workforce. But significantly she attaches no price tag to the reductions she seeks. The likelihood is that all of her savings, even if enacted, would not make a significant dent in the defense budget given that our military capabilities must grow to deal with threats from Africa to China. In any case sequestration is a mindless process of across-the-board hacking that will do major damage to vital programs; it is the very antithesis of the kind of rational pruning and rebalancing that Fluornoy suggests.
Now to the politics: In the last election, there was evidence that Republicans had lost their decades-old advantage on foreign policy and national security to a party led by the president who ordered the Osama bin Laden raid. How on earth will Republicans ever regain their advantage on these crucial issues if they come out as more anti-defense than Obama’s own defense secretary on the issue of sequestration?
I sympathize with the concerns of House Republicans about runaway spending. The growing public debt is a major concern that if left unaddressed could hamper American productivity and power in the long term. But the way to deal with this issue isn’t to whack away at the defense budget, which even if entirely eliminated would still not close our staggering, trillion-dollar-plus budget deficits. Congress needs to tackle entitlement reform, like it or not. President Obama’s opposition may make that impossible in the short-term but eviscerating our defense capabilities–and thereby making the world a more dangerous place–isn’t a viable alternative.
"Shrinkage! Do our enemies know about shrinkage? Do they?" n n-George Constanza
While it is a long shot that any entitlement reform will take place, the political reality is that nothing will be done with entitlements if defense spending isn't subjected to the same slashing. There can't be any sacred cows, everything has to be on the table… and significantly so. n nAs to your claims that defense spending is special and effectively a sacred cow, I argue that if we need to spend more to deal with China or Africa, then that increase needs to be offset with cuts to areas that frankly just aren't as critical. n nAnd finally, while the sequestration does lop off an amount of money off the top, nothing prevents the military from re-allocating what is left to the areas they feel important.
Our country is a mess, the democrats won't cut spending. Obama eventually has to own our nationas problems.
Why wouldn't the GOP cave? They have been scolded for four months now on being too strident, too extreme, too inflexible, too ideological, too conservative. They have been told to stop, "swinging for the fences" by Fred Barnes. Jen Rubin tells them to be more practical, less ideological. Tobin tells them to be less confrontational. Bill Kristol tells them to understand the political realities of their situation. With the advice they have been getting, suddenly they are supposed to pick a fight, a fight to spend more money? Really?!
The author is correct to this extent: across-the-board cuts with no reference to strategy are foolish. Where we part company is on strategy. We could defend the country quite effectively without 700 overseas bases and commitments only marginally related to our national interest. It would be nice, though, if the analysis started with the strategic questions.
This is nonsensical, knee-jerk clap-trap. Defense cuts can be restored in subsequent budgets (even if America needs to wait until it gets a real president and a GOP Senate); there is obviously a constituency in the country for that. nOn the other hand, parasite programs, are fiendishly difficult to cut and nearly impossible to slow down, while in place. Cutting them by $500 billion here is perhaps the only way to do it; and once cut, they will not be easily restored; there is NO constituency, no broad agreement in the country for that. nWhy do you think the so-called "president" is freaking out over this.