Posted on 05/24/2010 10:02:37 AM PDT by rabscuttle385
Congress, with its insatiable appetite for spending, is set to pass yet another “supplemental” appropriations bill in the next two weeks. So-called supplemental bills allow Congress to spend beyond even the 13 annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government. These are akin to a family that consistently outspends its budget, and therefore needs to use a credit card to make it through the end of the month.
If the American people want Congress to spend less, putting an end to supplemental appropriations bills would be a start. The 13 “regular” appropriations bills fund every branch, department, agency, and program of the federal government. Congress should place every dollar in plain view among those 13 bills. Instead, supplemental spending bills serve as a sneaky way for Congress to spend extra money that was not projected in budget forecasts. Once rare, they have become commonplace vehicles for deficit spending.
The latest supplemental bill is touted as an “emergency” war spending bill, needed to fund our ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. The emergencies never seem to end, however, and Congress passes one military supplemental bill after another as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on.
Many of my colleagues argue that Congress cannot put a price on our sacred national security, and I agree that the strong, unequivocal defense of our country is a top priority. There comes a time, however, when we must take stock of what our blank checks to the military industrial complex accomplish for us, and where the true threats to American citizens lie.
The smokescreen debate over earmarks demonstrates how we have lost perspective when it comes to military spending. Earmarks constitute about $11 billion of the latest budget. This sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but it is a drop in the bucket compared to the $708 billion spent by the Pentagon this year to expand our worldwide military presence. The total expenditures to maintain our world empire is approximately $1 trillion annually, which is roughly what the entire federal budget was in 1990!
We spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined, and far more than we spent during the Cold War. These expenditures in many cases foment resentment that does not make us safer, but instead makes us a target. We referee and arm conflicts the world over, and have troops in some 140 countries with over 700 military bases.
With this enormous amount of money and energy spent on efforts that have nothing to do with the security of the United States, when the time comes to defend American soil, we will be too involved in other adventures to do so.
There is nothing conservative about spending money we don’t have simply because that spending is for defense. No enemy can harm us in the way we are harming ourselves, namely bankrupting the nation and destroying our own currency. The former Soviet Union did not implode because it was attacked; it imploded because it was broke. We cannot improve our economy if we refuse to examine all major outlays, including so-called defense spending.
The states, once sovereign, are now the territories. Bambi is the emperor. The term empire just might fit.
He’s not talking about within our borders, but outside them.
This is a fairly good pic of him: http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post?id=2520019%2C136
Ah...I see the Code Pink talking points have appeared on this thread...
The constitution directs the government to provide for the common defense of our country. I didn’t say it provided for policing the world.
Military spending is mandated by the constitution. The quote from Ron Paul makes it sound like he is against military spending.
I don’t like Ron Paul. AFAIK, he is an anti-semite.
You are dangerous to this nation. Every time a breath of fresh air comes along, out scurries you and yours to insist the windows must be closed. 'There are germs in that fresh air, you say, which will poison the air we're used to breathing. You know, this stale insider air.'
If our congress were comprised of men like Paul, we would be a better and freer nation.
From the text of the definition above: "having a territory of great extent or a number of territories or peoples under a single sovereign authority"
That's what.
He's not, but I am. The federal government's growth in power and size is bankrupting the states and destroying their sovereignty. It is federal imperialism.
But his point is not entirely off the mark. I don't think it has to be all or nothing like most of the posts suggest. We can and should meet our obligations abroad and at home in a fiscally responsible manner.
He is right that if we go broke there will be nothing left for our military to defend.
It is you Paul supporters who want to close the windows and keep the U.S. isolated from the world. I am all for a breath of fresh air and to allow us to use our representation in order to protect our interests throughout the entire world, to promote the cause of freedom, and to put genocidal terrorist dictators in their place when through our representation we decide it warrants it. But you and the Paulites all come running out and scream terms like “neo-con” and cry that their would be no war if America was present overseas.
If our Congress was comprised of men all like your hero Paul then freedom would be on the decline throughout the world and our National Security would become weakened.
I don't really like it, but I'm disciplined enough to understand the wisdom of George Washington's insistence that, yes, we mind our own business, and refrain from foreign wars, even where the freedom of others is at stake.
*Ponders how to fix quote*
If our congress were comprised of men crazies like Paul, we would be a better and freer fruitier, and easier nation for Islam and anyone to destroy.
Fixed. Much better.
Not exactly what Washington ever said. I guess in your Paulite world whereas we do not forge any alliances, the help from the French would have never been accepted by the Founders. But it was accepted and that alliance was made thus making our own Revolutionary War partially a foreign entanglement that defies the distorted pronouncements of Paul supporters.
BEWARE THE LEADER WHO BANGS THE DRUMS of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know ? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. — James Madison
There’s no doubt of the proximate cause of their brokeness. The fact remains the Soviet Union was broke and it died from it. Your totally irrational hatred for Dr. Paul makes you blind to what he says. Please, seek help at once.
Nonsense. Isolationism - properly undersood - is precisely the best reponse to a nuclear world.
I am for Fortress America. Get energy independent. Guard our borders (something that internationalists can't seem to get your minds around - they want to "invade the world and invite the world" simulaneously), end Muslim immigration, stockpile nukes, arm our population to the teeth, and then if somebody does mess with us (and not some third country, regardless of how much we might like them) destroy the agressor such that they will never, ever be able to rise again. Leave not a stone upon a stone. Sew their fields with salt. Dash the children against a stone, as it says in the Psalms.
We'd have to do that once maybe every century or so. And the rest of the time we could have peace and trade without bankrupting ourselves on saving a bunch of hapless Arabs from themselves. For the record, I could not possibly care less about Iraq. It's really just off my radar screen.
All of this internationalist crap is for somebody else. It's for some ally, or for some mad cause de jure, like "making the world safe for democracy" or "cleansing the world of evil." It's NOT for us.
And in the life of nations, we are the only ones who count.
In this mean old world of ours, you really do have to have a steely glint in your eye and a curl in the lip. I wish others well, but when push comes to shove, we really must be prepared to leave them to their fate.
Ron Paul is my President.
Why would you say that? Of course we accept the help if it's good for us. If it stops being good for us, we stop it. And we throw France under the bus when it suits us. Are you suggesting that the French acted in helping us out of some love of liberty? It was in their interests to do so at the time, and they'd throw us under the bus when it was no longer in their interests. Same for the Brits. Same of the Canadians. It's the life of nations.
Stop being so naive.
Nice it says “Beware”. That is fine with me but it says nothing about not protecting the nation. You are simply mis-using the quote in the case of Paul’s views. For while there is of course danger in going to or in easily accepting war there is 100 times the danger in downplaying National Security in a world with nuclear weapons and biological and chemical weapons whereas the majority of the world is run by socialist fascist dictators who want to destroy America. Paul would simply allow them to build up all around us and watch as they committed genocide against our allies.
It is you who are being naive. Saddam Hussein was a serious threat to this nation and was a openly sworn enemy of ours but Paul and his supporters prove themselves way to stupid to know how to protect this nation. By Paul’s own distorted vision he would not have accepted the help of the France.
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