More power to you:
A growing number of centrist Democrats say they’re open to trimming Pentagon spending in the face of record budget deficits and mounting public debt.
Liberal Democrats for years have called for cuts to the massive defense budget to no avail. Even after Democrats regained control of Congress in 2007, their few attempts at reining in defense spending have proven futile, partly because of opposition from centrist Democrats hawkish on defense issues.
Now that opposition is softening amid rising concern about the nation’s fiscal future and the fact that defense makes up more than half the country’s discretionary spending.
“We are going to have to adopt the philosophy that nothing can be off the table,” said Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), one of the first members of the class of 2008 to be admitted into the Blue Dog Coalition. “And that is increasingly becoming the dominant view of the Blue Dogs.”
Now that two blue dogs are on board, defense cuts are now acceptable. And I’ll believe this when I see it.
debit
I don’t believe for a minute that it’ll happen. They’ll lose too much pork back home.
D-Chance.
They’re going to take pin knife to a job that requires a heavy chain saw.
mclaren
Since the Blue Dogs have now said they’re open to cutting the U.S. military budget, this offers sure proof that our military spending will explode exponentially.
Obama allowed an 8% increase in spending for the FY 2010 military budget while freezing all other spending, but this new development signals a massive increase in defense spending. 10% increase? 20% increase? 30%? 40%?
Whatever it turns out to be, we can be sure of one thing — the upcoming increase in military expenditures will be spectacular. This could well presage another a third war. Iran, perhaps? Syria? Lebanon?
As the last 2 years have shown, Democrats’ behavior can be predicted with perfect accuracy. Whatever they promise they’ll do, they do the exact opposite. Obama promised to shut down Gitmo so naturally it stayed open; Obama promised to end the miltiary commissions, so of course they’re moving forward. Obama promised to end torture, so needless to say, torture continues at Bagram and other “black” prisons. Obama promised he wouldn’t sign a health care bill without a public option, so naturally the bill he signed had no public option.
Now the Democrats are promising to cut America’s military expenditures. Bad news. Means a sharp increase, probably due to a third invasion in some new country.
Oh well. At least no one will be surprised when the Pentagon budget ramps up by another 200 billion a year and U.S. tanks start rolling into Syria, or wherever.
NobodySpecial
Of course, since this is a center-right nation, liberals should cease attempting to do something as crazy and unpopular as cut the military budget and be thankful that reasonable Democrats will only increase it 5 or 6 percentage points over last year.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Defense programs are harder to kill than Jason Voorhees. Defense contractors figured out long ago that the way to ensure the continued existence of any major piece of military hardware was to manufacturer the various parts in as many different Congressional districts as possible.
flukebucket
McCain was on ABC this morning shouting that the surge worked!
So no, there will be no cuts in military spending.
You have to win, win, win no matter what the cost, cost cost.
dhd
The quote from Altmire in that article is just priceless. What an asshole (but then, he did replace Melissa Hart, so maybe I shouldn’t complain too much…)
Sly
Frank did the right thing with his defense spending study group, in that he went so far as to include a few wingnuts on the panel to give the worrisome middle some cover. Because that’s all they ever want, really. “All these right wingers like this idea, so you wont be too hard on me, right? Right?”
I’d still be surprised if they got any serious cuts through, though. Small-government American Exceptionalists will still insist that we expend large amounts of public funds to subsidize the national security of Europeans and Asians, who they passionately despise.
Napoleon
They are just saying that so that when they take a chainsaw to SS they can say everything is on the table. They are as a group a bunch of lying sacks of shit that do nothing but protect the rich.
BR
Framing here matters a lot.
Calling it Pentagon spending evokes images of 10 layers of bureaucracy at the DoD.
Calling it defense spending or national security investments evokes images of things that are important to Keep America Safe ™.
The former folks are happy to cut. We just need to keep the discussion on “Pentagon spending”.
Bob L
Do keep in mind defense contractors tend to be American companies so a massive cut back there an’t going to help exactly help the economy or unemployment. But then again neither will balancing the budget threw dicking with someone’s unemployment during a recession.
But I forget, as they’ve shown as far as the rich ie REAL Americans are doing great to the recession is over so time to balance the budget with cut backs. The poor dears are facing a tax hike otherwise and that would be a disaster so even the defense sacred cow must be on the table.
ricky
I suggest they cut back on electric showers.
sparky
@mclaren: yes, well, you see we WANTED to cut spending, really we did, but you know, then we found this ipod in a bottle and when we played it, it had “i am the world on it” so you know, too bad…
grendelkhan
See, usually the words “nothing can be off the table” mean that someone is about to cut food stamps for orphans or something. But per Norquist, all those fluffy silly things like food, shelter, medical care and basic dignity for the howling masses of the nation need to be cut before we so much as consider trimming a bit off of our massive defensecock. These people have the order all backwards, darn it!
Sheila
If we truly wanted to “defend” ourselves, we would transform all war spending into aggressive (not violent) humanitarian efforts around the globe. We could still employ the same amount of people but at a vastly lower cost. Compare the price of food, clothing, shelter, educational training, etc., with that of highly-technological weapons, many of which don’t work the way they are supposed to work anyway. The “defense” department has as much to do with keeping our country safe from invasion and/or terrorists as the fence on the border has to do with keeping our country “safe” from illegal aliens. Borders that need to be “protected” are made in the mind, not in nature.
Zifnab
@Napoleon: This.
We’ll see the defense budget constrained for a year to 4% growth and the retirement age raised to 70. Hurray for fiscal responsibility!
Getting rid of the F-22 was like pulling teeth off a rabid pit bull.
El Cid
Remember that the last time politicians seemed willing to cut ‘waste’ and ‘outdated programs’ from the military, it was launched as the ‘base closings commission’ under Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., and shortly after its launching was seen as part of the ‘peace dividend’ some fantasized would be produced due to the collapse of the USSR.
The result of this bipartisan commission of defense efficiency increases which began being carried out under George H. W. Bush was that Bill Clinton was blamed for hollowing out the military by the Gingrich Congress right up until George W. Bush II The Lesser let Fourthbranch Cheney save us all from Saddamqa’ida.