98 posted on Tue Dec 04 2012 23:43:16 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time) by Roland: “But in the long term I don't believe that a country can afford to spend 1/3 of it's revenue on defense.” I remember reading some campaign material put out by Richard Nixon in his 1972 campaign in which he said, when targeting college students in his appeals, that he had managed to bring the defense budget under 50 percent of the total federal budget.
Defense spending isn't anywhere close to that level today. Social welfare spending and entitlements have become a steadily increasing percentage of the budget, along with payments on the national debt and the ticking time bomb of Social Security.
That is wrong.
Most of what the federal government does today either should be done by the states and cities, or should be done by private individuals and organizations, or shouldn't be done at all.
By contrast, providing for the common defense is virtually the only big-dollar item on which the federal government has the primary role under our Constitution. The federal government has other constitutionally prescribed functions, of course, but most of them do not cost anywhere close to what defense costs.
Obviously there is waste in the defense department. I live outside a major Army installation and I could tell horror stories. I think putting together a committee of angry first sergeants could generate billions of dollars in defense cuts due to waste, fraud and abuse, and creating a committee like that is a program I could get behind.
What the Democrats want is something entirely different, not fixing defense but gutting defense.
I agree with your opinion on the role of federal and state government. In theory you are correct. But good luck convincing the benefits dependent electorate they should accept welfare and SS being gutted to balance the budget while defense spending remains untouched.
For the time being the priority, as I see it, is to cut spending and size of government. I don’t think this is achievable because there are too many factions trying to protect their favorite programs. If there is any chance for this to work everyone will have to take a hit. I’m not suggesting that defense should be the whipping boy. Ideally some (many) programs would be eliminated entirely and the ones that remain would take equal cuts as a percentage. Based on the nature of politics I believe this is the best we can hope for.
I also don’t believe that most democrats want to gut defense, they also enjoy that flavor of pork, it’s simply a matter of priorities. There isn’t enough to go around anymore. I was stationed at New London during the last round of BRAC. As one might expect the New England liberals did not appreciate the military being there much. You would not believe how quickly they can change their tune and the amount of ass kissing that went on after that base ended up on the BRAC list.