In the long run military strength and economic strength are the same thing. The fiscal cliff (and the debt ceiling - AKA fiscal cliff 2) strengthens America’s economy by constraining spending and therefore strengthens the military.
Yes, that is wisdom, because they are.
The fiscal cliff (and the debt ceiling - AKA fiscal cliff 2) strengthens Americas economy by constraining spending and therefore strengthens the military.
With respect, this is a completely contrary statement to your first.
You must understand several things. First of all, in just a few days, Defense budget authority will be cut with a meat ax by 9.4%. The ramifications of that are even worse than the number. Why? Here is why: Obama has ordered that veterans affairs and military personnel strength not be touched by that cut, and contracts already signed by companies must be honored by law. So the only way to implement these cuts is to slice Operations and Maintenance, called O&M. The percentage that O&M will be cut will be much higher as a result, perhaps as high as 1/3 initially to "pay the bill." I served in the military for over 20 years. In between operations tours, I was assigned to the Pentagon. I know how this works. The military is about to be gutted along the alimentary canal, period. There is no other way around this.
Secondly, Obama has already taken pounds of flesh from the DoD budget. It is the only department to take massive cuts before the looming disaster known as sequestration. The cuts he initiated totaled $500 Billion. Don't let anyone tell you those cuts were "smoke and mirrors." They were not. Thousands of jobs have already been axed, the military infrastructure has already cracked, and our future weapon systems will be a shadow of what we barely are able to maintain now.
Our nation has crossed the Marxist Rubicon river.
Sending out direct deposit Entitlements to both the deserving and the undeserving is now the primary function of the Federal government.
This will not end well. One, we cannot afford the $100 Trillion in unfunded liabilities (which is a fancy way of saying promises to send checks to millions of people for decades to come). But also because our nation is going to be tested in war again. It will happen. The current generation that has served loyally and with great sacrifice is almost burned out completely and broken. They have served multiple deployments, served in harsh conditions, and yet despite all of this our nation has broken faith with them.
Perhaps the looming fiscal and security disaster is what we deserve as a nation.