Our President’s Idea of Spending Cuts
News outlets are starting to report that next year’s budget will include cuts in various areas of spending — with a focus on cutting defense spending.
As a fiscal conservative, there isn’t much I find more relieving than the idea that a far-left administration might start to embrace the idea of spending cuts. But let me just relay a few thoughts on this matter to our President’s supporters out there, particularly those who will be voting in 2012.
First, don’t let yourself be fooled into the idea that responsible and scaled-back spending is anywhere on Barack Obama’s list of priorities. You want to cut discretionary spending? Let’s start by refusing to add new spending projects. A $787 billion dollar stimulus package that threw a few bucks into every little menial construction project across the country and a $1 trillion or more healthcare access expansion bill, both signed into law within a year and a half of Obama’s ascension to office, tells me that this guy is a BIG time spender. That doesn’t even account for the potential passage of this unemployment benefits expansion bill that will add a nice wad of cash to the deficit, while eliminating jobs from the American economy. So if you think that this administration has you in its best interests when it preaches budget cuts, you’ve been completely fooled. Want to make cuts? Start with cutting entitlement programs, forcing people to create jobs and causing natural economic stimulus.
Aside from the ridiculous, in-your-face hypocrisy as described above, the idea that defense should suffer increased budget cuts over any other department is ludicrous. I am so sick of this hindsight approach to national defense working its way into American mainstream thought patterns. It doesn’t seem to matter to anyone where we are now — all we hear is why we shouldn’t be there. Should we have invaded Iraq and cultivated a pattern of Iraqi dependency on American security forces? No. Most people get that by now. But that should have nothing to do with defense spending moving forward. I’ll be hard pressed to convince nonbelievers in American exceptionalism or a muscular US foreign policy to agree with me on this one, but for those of us Reagan-type patriots out there, there is a pride factor involved in conducting our military operations in a way that we don’t expect (or hope) to fail as an excuse to wipe our hands clean of the situation. And if you can’t take that as a sufficient argument, need I remind you how vital it is for our own national and energy security to have a stable Middle East? Cutting off our own resources to the region seems about the worst approach to take right about now.
Some (particularly members of the Obama administration) might argue that we need to focus more on efficient military spending, and that spending cuts will force us to extract more results per dollar spent. In a perfect world, I’d agree 100%. But the fact is, spending inefficiencies will always exist in national defense. As long as it’s funded and operated by the U.S. government and there is a political agenda at stake, there will be spending wasted. So to think that spending reduction is possible without surrending some of our military capability is wishful thinking. I’m not saying that I agree with inefficient spending, I just embrace it as an inevitablility. That’s one of the primary reasons why I support the slashing of entitlement programs. Maybe I’m just a pessimist — but it’s an irrefutable historical trend that we seem unlikely to break with any time soon.
The whole mentality of this administration that preaches entitlements and snubs its nose at national defense is one that frustrates me and that, frankly, I have a really hard time understanding. I think it’s fair to say that Robert Gates (who in fact opposes these spending cuts) might know a thing or two more about the need for a consistent Pentagon budget than Barack Obama. Hopefully, our President will wake up to the reality of the situation, realize his personal lack of qualifications to make a fully informed and educated decision on this matter (as compared to the Secretary of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, etc.) and won’t try to work around the advice of one of the most intelligent and qualified military advisors that this country has.
Oh and by the way, Mr. President — enjoy your vacation this week while your top advisors deliberate this decision for you.
OK. Let’s start from the least egregious to the most egregious of your claims…
1. Big deal — Obama was on vacation. Turns out Presidents Reagan, and Bush I and II all spent more time “on vacation” in their first year than Obama did. So let’s leave that out of any analysis of his performance as the leader of this nation.
Here’s the link to prove it: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/01/president-obamas-vacation-days/
2. You qualify the Administration as “hypocrite” for hinting that the 2011 Budget will see cuts in discretionary spending while in the meantime Obama has signed the Economic Stimulus and the Healthcare Reform Act. I see no connection between the two. If anything, these pieces of legislation are the farthest from what you would qualify as “discretionary spending” — rather being comprehensive and long-term investments of the government (like public education and Medicaid) as part of the effort of providing the goods and services that all Americans fundamentally deserve. Sure, we can talk about the qualities of what the Federal government should and shouldn’t take on as “major investments.” But it’s not fair to call Obama a hypocrite if he’s trying to cut spending on cancerous pork programs that flood Departmental budgets.
3. So now it’s somehow “tragic” that we’re cutting spending on Defense because of some conceited feeling of self-importance and patriotism? Things happen for a reason, and surely if the Defense budget is being cut, it’s because Obama seeks to invest more in other areas which our country has ignored to develop — like our diplomatic corps, for example. The 2010 Budget gave the State Department some room to breathe, and allowed for more Foreign Service Officers to be hired. And, I wouldn’t be surprised if that trend continues inj next year’s Budget. Now THAT’S something worth being proud and patriotic about…. that we can have the world’s finest diplomatic body, and have the potential to advance a global agenda for peace and democracy. Not that we have the meanest soldiers and bloodiest guns which we can use to police the world as we wish. Of course Robert Gates isn’t going to want to see cuts — it’s his Department!
But enough is enough. If you’re going to complain that Obama should be cutting expenditures, then you should start by reciognizing that the Defense Department ought to be the first on the cutting board. The Pentagon does not need more carte blanche and blank checks from the President. This is a civilian society led by a civilian government, and nothing or anyone should try to tip that balance — for the sake of our democracy.
Alright, I’ll go ahead and reply to each point in order:
1. Yes, the vacation thing was probably an unnecessary side note (which is why it only got one sentence). Clearly that wasn’t meant to be a main point.
2. You misunderstood my accusation of hypocrisy. The two actions don’t connote hypocrisy, it’s the fact that his grounds for cutting the defense budget has been to cut wasteful spending, which the stimulus bill was overflowing with. All I’m suggesting is that saying that he’s cutting defense in the name of fiscal responsibility is ridiculous when he’s just a year removed from one of the most wasteful spending bills in recent memory.
3. It’s not necessarily a matter of “self-importance” as you inferred. It’s more a matter of doing a job properly. Hiring more Foreign Service officers is nice, but what sort of practical implications is that really going to have in terms of global conflict and US foreign policy? It might be a beneficial long-term strategy, but the immediate conflict is an armed one, not a diplomatic one, and to try to carry it out any other way is not likely to produce anything beneficial (save for maybe a Nobel Peace Prize).
The whole point of this post was to demonstrate that Defense should not, in fact, be first on the cutting board. While it is laden with waste, there is no denying that our entitlement and social welfare programs have turned into little more than a sponge for the federal budget.
One more thought — true, this is a civilian democracy. And yes, the government is a civilian one. I’m obviously not proposing any sort of oligarchic framework, but consider this thought: what is the number one purpose and function of our government? The most very basic purpose is to provide protection (in a military sense) to its citizens. All other purposes (economic structuring, internal conflict mediation, public works and infrastructure, etc.) are secondary and are entirely unattainable if we cannot first provide for the “common defense.” (Ring a bell?) Doing so is a matter of replying to the existing situation, rather than the modified ideal of what we would like the situation to be (i.e. conventional vs. diplomatic warfare).