Rebuttals of pseudo-arguments for defense cuts

The following is a rebuttal of many pseudo-arguments for defense cuts that I’ve seen or heard uttered. Some of the rebuttals are reiterations of what I’ve said earlier; others are new.

Pseudo-argument #1: Defense spending has long enjoyed protected status from budget cuts, so it’s time to cut it.

Fact: Defense spending has never enjoyed protected status. During the Reagan years, significant DOD reforms were instituted, most wasteful expenditures were rooted out after the $600 toilet seat scandal, and after 1986, the defense budget was cut in real terms by the Gramm-Rudman Act and other Congressional legislation. During the period from 1989 to 2001, Presidents Bush and Clinton, together with the Congress, cut defense spending by 35% (i.e. more than a third), drastically reducing the military’s force structure, modernization programs, and base infrastructure. Under President Bush, numerous crucial weapon programs were closed, the DOD got smaller budgets than it wanted, and in 2005, it was ordered to cut its budget by billions of dollars. Under President Obama, over 50 weapon programs have been closed, and $439 billion has already been cut from defense budgets, even as Obama has been expanding America’s military commitments. And in April, Obama ordered the DOD to cut its budget by another $400 billion over the next 12 years. Defense spending is now lower than it was during FY2008 ($513 bn this FY against $524 bn during FY2008, in real terms). So no, defense spending has never enjoyed protected status.

Pseudo-argument #2: Defense spending and the DOD as an institution have been shielded from serious scrutiny for a long time.

Fact: Defense spending and the DOD have never been shielded from serious scrutiny. They are constantly monitored by the media (which often pick any problem of the DOD as a pretext for defense cuts), CSPAN, and the Congress, which frequently holds hearings on defense issues, including defense budgetary issues, and the DOD has to justify its budget requests and programmatic decisions to the Congress. The Congress often asks difficult questions, as anyone who has watched Congressional hearings of DOD officials would attest. One of the most difficult hearings was that of January 2011, when the Deputy SECDEF and Vice Chiefs were grilled by the HASC and the Deputy SECDEF had to embarrasingly admit, in response to a question by Congressman Randy Forbes, that no auditible finacial statements were filed for FY2010.

Pseudo-argument #3: We can afford to cut defense spending because it’s possible to maintain defense-on-the-cheap. We can afford to have a strong defense at a much lower cost.

Fact: Maintaining a strong defense is not cheap. “Defense-on-the-cheap” is not possible. During his time, President Bush, like many of his predecessors, misled the American people to believe that America could maintain “defense-on-the-cheap”, and he waged 2 simoultaneous wars with a peacetime military budget which never exceeded 4.5% of GDP. As Napoleon famously said, “An army marches on its stomach”. To have a strong defense, you need a large number of high-quality, modern weapons (tanks, fighterplanes, bombers, helicopters, warships, etc.) and highly-educated, well-trained, well-motivated people to operate them (and because the US military is an All-Volunteer Force, you need incentives to convince them to join the military in the first instance). Even so, the current defense budget is a light burden on the US economy (it amounts to just 3.59% of GDP) and so was the previous defense budget (it equalled 3.65% of GDP).

Pseudo-argument #4: We should treat all kinds of spending equally, and if we’re going to cut entitlements and domestic discretionary spending, we should also cut defense spending. Why should the DOD be exempted?

Fact: It is wrong and even insulting to treat defense spending as just another line item in the federal budget. Unlike the vast majority of the other current agencies, policies and programs of the federal government, defense (i.e. creating and maintaining a strong military) is a constitutional DUTY of the federal government. Not only is it constitutionally-authorized, it’s a constitutional obligation. Contrary to what Liberal Grover Norquist and Liberal Lobbyist David Keene claimed in a November 2010 letter to Republican leaders, defense is not anyone’s pet project, it is a sacred obligation.

The need to provide for the common defense was, indeed, one of the reasons why the federal government was established in the first place. The Preamble to the Constitution says:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and ourPosterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

The URL: http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Preamble

The Congress should adequately fund those few agencies who perform Constitutional tasks of the federal government, while defunding every unconstitutional agency and program.

Also, those who protest against “exempting” defense spending from cuts appear to suggest that defense spending has, so far, been exempted from cuts. This is untrue, as evidenced in the rebuttal to Pseudo-argument #1.

Pseudo-argument #5: Defense spending caused (or helped cause) the current deficit crisis, so it must be cut if this crisis is to be ended.

Fact: Defense spending did not cause America’s fiscal problems, and cutting it won’t solve them, as testified by President Obama’s own nominee for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey.

Defense spending has grown by only 47% in real terms over the last decade, from $377 bn (in today’s money) in FY2001 to $513 bn today. (GWOT spending added another $160 bn in FY2011). In FY2000, it accounted for a full 15% of federal spending; now it accounts for 14.31%. In FY2001, it amounted to 3.0% of GDP; now it amounts to 3.5%. (The proposed FY2012 defense budget would increase that amount slightly, to 3.78%, assuming no cuts are made to it.)

Since FY2001, total federal spending has doubled, from $1.85 trillion per year to $3.7 trillion per annum, but defense has received only ca. 8% of that spending splurge. The rest was added to the GWOT accounts and to civilian spending accounts.

Federal spending has been growing year after year nonstop, as has discretionary civilian spending, while the DOD had to cut its budget in 2005, 2009, 2010 and this year. Since FY2010, defense spending has been reduced from $550 bn (in today’s money) to $513 billion. In FY2009 alone, over 30 weapon programs were closed. Several further were closed this fiscal year, and the DOD has proposed closing several further ones. Since Obama has taken office, defense spending (along with projections for future defense budget plans) has been cut by $439 billion during just 2.5 years.

At the same time, civilian spending – discretionary and nondiscretionary alike – has skyrocketed, and within, budget deficits and the public debt. So defense spending cuts have utterly failed to reduce the deficit.

In FY2008, the defense budget was $524.07 in today’s money ($481.4 in FY2008 dollars), and the federal budget deficit was ca. $400 bn. This fiscal year, the defense budget is $513 bn, but the federal budget deficit is $1.65 trillion – four times larger than it was in FY2008! So no, defense spending did not cause America’s fiscal problems.

Pseudo-argument #6: After all the billions of dollars that the DOD has wasted, exempting it from further budget cuts would mean rewarding it and sparing it the punishment.

Fact: Cutting the defense budget won’t reform the DOD. It would actually produce the opposite effect, as it would reduce in even higher cost growth, cost overruns, program delays, etc. This is what happened during the 1970s – the defense budget was cut, and yet the costs of DOD programs were growing at an average pace of 14% per year. Then, in 1981, Ronald Reagan began his DOD reforms. During the 1970s and the 1990s, defense spending was deeply cut, and yet no DOD reforms occurred. These cuts only weakened the military and exacerbated the DOD’s problems. Real reforms of the DOD occurred during times when defense spending was increased: during the 1960s, 1980s, and the Bush era (under Secretary Rumsfeld).

The only way to reform the DOD is to actually reform it, and on my blog, I’ve explained how exactly to do it. Cutting the defense budget and reforming the DOD are two different issues.

Last but not least, the federal government’s role is to provide for America’s defense, not to punish the DOD. Reducing the defense budget will not help the federal government play that role.

Pseudo-argument #7: America spends more on defense than all other countries of the world combined, so we can surely afford to cut our defense budget.

America does not spend more on its military (let alone on the core defense budget) than the rest of the world combined. It’s simply not true. The latest SIPRI estimates of the world’s military budgets for calendar year 2010 show that while the US spent $687 bn on its military in CY2010, the next 21 countries combined (the PRC, France, Britain, Russia, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Italy, India, Brazil, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Spain, the UAE, Turkey, Israel, the Netherlands, Greece, Colombia, and Taiwan) collectively spent $691.009 billion on their militaries in CY2010, more than the US. If you count America’s core defense budget only, and don’t count GWOT spending, it takes even fewer countries to outspend the US. Moreover, the SIPRI understated China’s military budget (which, according to the DOD, was $140 bn in FY2007 and about $150 bn in CY2010) and blindly accepted Russia’s understated military budget (many Russian ministries buy military goods from their budgets and give them as “free goods” to the Russian MOD). Moreover, raw dollar figures, even if adjusted for inflation, mask two facts:

1) Most countries of the world don’t have the same defense needs, and the same broad global interests, as the US has.

2) In most countries of the world, including China and Russia, one dollar can buy several times more than in the US.

In short, any comparison of another country’s military budget to that of the United States is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Other countries’ defense budgets are useless as indicators of what America’s defense budget should be.

Pseudo-argument #8: The defense budget is more than adequate. We can afford to cut it.

Fact: The FY2011 defense budget is anything but adequate. It amounts to $513 bn ($530 bn according to some sources), i.e. just 3.5% of GDP. It’s the smallest defense budget, measured as a percentage of GDP, since FY1948, excepting the budgets for FYs1998-2002.  It is very short on funding for both modernization and readiness. As all four Service Vice Chiefs testified before the Congress recently, their services are already suffering significant readiness shortages and their equipment has been worn out, and cutting the defense budget would severely weaken them. See here, here, here, here, and here. Signs that the US military’s equipment is worn out and damaged, and that the military is not ready to fight, are evident and have been publicly reported. For example, all of the USN’s 22 Ticonderoga class cruisers have cracks in their hulls, and 40% of the USN’s warships are not ready to deploy.

Pseudo-argument #9: After almost a decade of war, it’s time for the military to shed people, weapons, and dollars.

Fact: Whether wars are ending or not is irrelevant to whether the US military should shed them or not, and to how much America should spend on defense. Wars haven’t ended yet, but when they do, GWOT spending will zero out automatically. But even when these wars end, the US should not cut its defense spending and weaken its military. It is always necessary to maintain a strong defense, and maintaining it is the best way to keep peace. As George Washington said, “to be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of keeping peace.”

Pseudo-argument #10: There will be no adverse consequences if we cut the defense budget deeply.

Fact: On the contrary, there will be disastrous consequences. Modernization programs would have to be radically cut or completely cancelled, on top of all program cuts and closures already administered by Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Readiness would also suffer dreadfully, as testified by all four Service Vice Chiefs. See here. The US military is already stressed, stretched thin, suffering significant readiness and equipment shortages, and its weapons have been worn out. Cutting defense spending further would be the knockout blow for the military.

Pseudo-argument #11: We can’t afford to spend as much as we currently do. Defense has to be cut if America is to avoid a financial disaster.

Fact: America does not have to cut its defense budget to balance its budget. The defense budget ($513 bn in FY2011) amounts to just 14.31% of the total federal budget and therefore, it’s not necessary to cut it to balance the budget. Congressman Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, and the Heritage Foundation have both proposed budgets that would eventually eliminate the budget deficit entirely (Paul Ryan’s plan would also eventually pay off the entire public debt). So it’s possible to balance the budget without defense spending cuts.

Pseudo-argument #12: Cutting defense spending is a better option than, for example, cutting welfare programs, entitlements, farm subsidies, and the Education Department’s budget.

Actually, if defense spending is cut (especially if it’s cut deeply), America will be harmed more badly than if those domestic programs are cut. Most of them don’t benefit the country at all – they benefit only the dependency class, seniors, and constituencies that receive pork from these programs and agencies. Many federal programs and agencies, such as naked body scanners, most other DHS programs, ethanol subsidies, and agencies that meddle with states’ affairs (e.g. the Education Department), are actively damaging. Many others, such as NASA, studies of the DNA of bears in Montana, and the study on whether a gay man’s penis size matters, are downright wasteful.

This list was meant to be exhaustive, but sadly, it is not possible to cover to all the myths, lies, and other pseudo-arguments invented by the opponents of defense spending. Perhaps monks at some monastery will attempt to do so someday.

Defense spending did not cause America’s fiscal problems. Cutting it won’t solve them.

That is exactly what I (along with a few other people such as Heritage Foundation analysts) have been saying for a long time; last month the top ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee joined us; and recently, we’ve also been joined by the most important ally we could have: the nominee for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, US Army.

A battle-hardened combat veteran who deployed to Iraq on multiple tours, General Dempsey is no “general who is trying to protect his toys”, as American generals are frequently described by the media, by libertarians, and by liberals. He’s an officer concerned about his country and its future.

Just a few days ago, during his confirmation hearing, he warned that further defense cuts would impair America’s military capabilities, and massive defense cuts – such as the $886 billion cuts demanded by President Obama and Senate Democrats – would dramatically weaken the US military and radically increase risks for the United States. Here’s a quote from The Hill regarding what General Dempsey said:

“Cutting defense by nearly $1 trillion to reduce the deficit would be harmful to America’s national security, according to Gen. Martin Dempsey, President Obama’s nominee for top military officer.

Dempsey broke with the man he would replace as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, and on Tuesday offered senators a different assessment of the nation’s top threat.

“I wouldn’t describe our economic condition as the single biggest threat to national security,” Dempsey told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “There are a lot of clear and present threats to our security in the current operational environment. … National security [spending] didn’t cause the debt crisis, nor will [reducing - ZM] it solve it.”

Mullen has for months made clear his belief that “our national debt is our biggest national security problem.” His position has been cited by Republicans eager to slice federal government spending, as well as by Democrats who want big cuts to the Pentagon.

Dempsey acknowledged that “the national debt is a grave concern,” but cautioned against large defense cuts to help fix Washington’s balance sheet.

“Our national power is the aggregate of our diplomatic, military and economic influence,” Dempsey said. “We have to address our economic stature, but that doesn’t mean we can neglect the other instruments of national power.”

Dempsey’s warnings about defense cuts larger than Obama’s $400 billion were echoed later Tuesday by the vice chiefs of the military services. Several of them told the House Armed Services Readiness subcommittee that their services need more — not less — annual funding.”

General Dempsey is right. Defense spending did NOT cause America’s fiscal problems, and cutting it will not solve them.

Defense spending has grown by only 47% in real terms over the last decade, from $377 bn (in today’s money) in FY2001 to $513 bn today. (GWOT spending added another $160 bn in FY2011). In FY2000, it accounted for a full 15% of federal spending; now it accounts for 14.31%. In FY2001, it amounted to 3.0% of GDP; now it amounts to 3.5%. (The proposed FY2012 defense budget would increase that amount slightly, to 3.78%, assuming no cuts are made to it.)

Since FY2001, total federal spending has doubled, from $1.85 trillion per year to $3.7 trillion per annum, but defense has received only ca. 8% of that spending splurge. The rest was added to the GWOT accounts and to civilian spending accounts.

Federal spending has been growing year after year nonstop, as has discretionary civilian spending, while the DOD had to cut its budget in 2005, 2009, 2010 and this year. Since FY2009, defense spending has been reduced from $550 bn (in today’s money) to $513 billion. In FY2009 alone, over 30 weapon programs were closed. Several further were closed this fiscal year, and the DOD has proposed closing several further ones. Since Obama has taken office, defense spending (along with projections for future defense budget plans) has been cut by $439 billion during just 2.5 years.

At the same time, civilian spending – discretionary and nondiscretionary alike – has skyrocketed, and within, budget deficits and the public debt. So defense spending cuts have utterly failed to reduce the deficit.

Now several groups, as well as President Obama, are demanding even deeper defense cuts. Gordon Adams, one of the architects of the disastrous Clinton defense cuts, wants to reduce defense spending by $800 bn over a decade. Obama, the Gang of Six, and Senate Democrats demand cuts to the tune of $886 bn/decade. Tom Coburn demands $1.006 trillion’s worth of defense cuts. The Soros-funded CAP demands cuts to the tune of $1 trillion.

This must be prevented at any cost. Cutting defense spending by those huge amounts, or any amounts similar to them, would utterly gut the military and invite aggressors to attack America. It would render the military totally impotent. It must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances. General Dempsey, as well as the four Service Vice Chiefs, have stated this before the Congress, under oath. Several distinguished defense issues experts, including the HASC Chairman, four HASC members (including two Subcommittee Chairmen), former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former DOD Comptroller Dov S. Zakheim, and defense affairs analyst Max Boot, have stated the same.

That’s because it’s the truth. The US military is already struggling to fight three wars and defend America with an inadequate budget. All four Services are suffering serious readiness shortages, and are using obsolete, unsurvivable, expensive-to-maintain military equipment that is nearing the end of its service lifetime and needs to be replaced. Cutting defense spending further – let alone as deeply as Obama and the Senate Democrats have suggested – would totally wreck the military. We’re not talking about chump changes; we’re talking about cuts of the magnitude of $886 bn over a decade, i.e. $88.6 bn per year!

That’s why any further defense cuts must be prevented at any cost.

Ignorant general runs his uninformed mouth again

The outgoing Vice Chairman of the JCS, Gen. James Cartwright, an ignorant general also known as President Obama’s favorite general, has run his uninformed mouth yet again, proving how ignorant and how stupid he is.

Cartwright (who admits he’s a “bomber hater” and who was one of those who convinced Secretary Gates to kill the nascent Next Generation Bomber program in 2009) has questioned the repeatedly-proven (by two successive QDRs, as well as numerous other studies and real-world threats) need for a bomber and has demanded that it be completely unmanned, and claimed that no one has proven to him that it needs to be manned or optionally manned.

Yet, the truth is that it needs to be optionally manned. An unmanned bomber would be unsuitable for some threat environments, e.g. those that would be saturated with jammers and other electronic warfare weapons (which could jam or disable a drone’s link to the operating station), places which such links cannot reach, places which require aircraft with pilots onboard to be situationally aware first-hand, and theaters where immediate, onboard retasking would be required. An unmanned bomber cannot fight in any of these environments. A manned or optionally manned bomber could.

Also, there’s no way that an unmanned bomber would ever be trusted with nuclear weapons.

And once you lose your link to a bomber, it’s lost and hundreds of millions of dollars go down the drain.

An optionally manned bomber would offer the DOD maximum flexibility: it could fight both in theaters where a manned bomber would be required and in theaters that are too dull, too dirty, or too dangerous for a human crew.

Cartwright, who has never flown aboard, or even touched, a  bomber, also blathered nonsense that a missile  (e.g. a Prompt Global Strike System) would be cheaper and better suited for long-range-strike missions than a bomber. He’s wrong. A PGS would not be cheaper. The unit cost might be lower (an LGM-30 Minuteman ICBM costs about $100 mn), but it would be usable only once. Once you use it, it’s gone. A bomber could cost, under optimistic estimates, $440 million, but it could be used for 50 years or more. Moreover, missiles are vulnerable to SAMs, while stealthy bombers are not. Missiles are too expensive for serious military campaigns. They (including PGSes) can be used only against a limited number of fleeting or high-value targets (like Ayman al-Zawahiri).

There is no alternative to a bomber.

Cartwright also blathered nonsense that deploying PGSes would allow the US to reduce its nuclear stockpile. That’s gibberish. America’s nuclear deterrent is designed for a totally different mission (nuclear deterrence) than PGSes (long-range strike). America’s nuclear doctrine is a no-first-strike policy (though not declared).

The only thing he got right is that the Next Generation Bomber type needs to be produced in significant numbers – not just 21 like the B-2 type, but 80-100, and it must not cost $1.2 bn per copy like one B-2. (I believe it needs to be produced in the hundreds; doing so would bring down unit cost even more significantly.) And the USAF is working to ensure exactly such a result.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=64684

Obama has once again proven he knows nothing about defense issues

America’s worst president ever, Barack Obama, has once again proven he knows nothing about defense issues, including the defense budget. During his recent Twitter interview with the voters and with Democratic plants, Obama was asked (apparently by a Democratic plant) a question about whether he plans to cut defense spending to reduce the budget deficit. Obama replied:

“The nice thing about the defense budget is it’s so big, it’s so huge, that a 1 percent reduction is the equivalent of the education budget. Not—I’m exaggerating, but it’s so big that you can make relatively modest changes to defense that end up giving you a lot of head room to fund things like basic research or student loans or things like that.”

To borrow a line from Herman Cain: Mr President, with all due respect, you’re wrong.

Obama was wrong. With that reply, he has proven that he knows nothing about defense issues, including the defense budget. Firstly, the defense budget for FY2011 (the current fiscal year) is $530 billion, and the DOD’s base budget request for FY2012 is $553 billion. 1% of these sums is a microscopic $5.3-$5.5 billion, equals just 4.5% of the federal education budget (i.e. the budget of the federal Department of Education), which is $122 billion for the current FY. This is even less than the 7% that the Heritage Foundation claimed.

Cutting the defense budget by $5.5 billion would not provide enough money for student loans nor for basic research programs. And although Obama has not explained what he means by “modest changes”, it’s likely that for him, even cutting the defense budget by 15-20% would be a chump change.

And although he admitted that “We can’t just lop 25% off the defense budget overnight” and that the US military has legitimate equipment needs that must be funded, he nonetheless insisted that defense cuts are needed, prudent, required by a “strategy”, justifiable, and safe for America – which they are not.

As the DOD has reported on its website, Obama said during the Twitter interview that:

“Though he is committed to cutting the Defense Department budget as part of the overall reduction in the federal deficit, U.S.security and strategic needs must drive the effort, President Barack Obama said yesterday in his first Twitter town hall meeting.

Obama said he conducted the meeting to find out what the public thinks about how to reduce the federal deficit, what costs should be cut and which investments should be kept.

Responding to suggestions for cuts in the defense budget, the president said that is not an easy task.

“We can’t simply lop off 25 percent off the defense budget overnight,” he said. “We have to think about all the obligations we have to our troops who are in the field, and making sure they’re properly equipped and safe.” The need to replace outdated military equipment is another budget consideration, the president added.

“We’ve ended the war in Iraq, our combat mission there, and all our troops are slated to be out by the end of this year,” Obama said. And as Afghan forces take more responsibility for their country’s security, he added, U.S. forces will draw down there as well. But drawing down forces and beginning a new phase in Afghanistan must be done “fairly gradually,” he said.

Obama said that while decisions to cut defense spending will be tough, a reduction requires a balanced approach, as with any government program, to shrink the overall federal budget.

“Those who say that we can’t cut military at all haven’t spent a lot of time looking at military budgets,” he added.

However, the president said, the reductions must take place with the nation’s security in mind.

“One of the things that we have to do is make sure that we do it in a thoughtful way that’s guided by our security and our strategic needs,” he said. “And I think we can accomplish that.””

Actually, I have spent more time “looking at”, reading, analyzing, describing, and devising amendments to, America’s (and Britain’s) defense budgets, as anyone who reads my blog and my articles knows. I’ve spent much more time doing it than Barack Obama or any other Democratic politician has. I’ve spent ca. 90% of my spare time doing so during the last 4 years. America can afford to withdraw its troopers from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, and to zero its spending on these countries and the GWOT, but it cannot afford to reduce the size of its defense tooth or its base defense budget (which is already too small).

Obama claims that “our security and our strategic needs” should guide defense budget cuts and he thinks “we can accomplish that.” That is not true. One cannot accomplish defense budget cuts that would be consistent with America’s defense needs and strategic needs. Those needs dictate that defense spending be increased, not decreased. They do not require defense spending cuts; quite the contrary is true.

Therefore, one cannot credibly claim that “US security needs and strategy must drive the effort to cut defense spending.”

Moreover, it is ridiculous for him to claim that any cuts he will make to defense spending and America’s military will be justified by strategy. They will not. They will likely be arbitrary cuts that will weaken the US military. Moreover, they will be made SOLELY to meet Obama’s diktat of cutting defense spending by $400 bn over the next 12 years. Moreover, the DOD will likely lie that these cuts are justified, make up some excuses, and produce some “strategy” that will pretend to justify these unjustifiable defense cuts. (That’s what it did in 2010 with the QDR – it was written solely to justify Gates’ unjustifiable defense cuts.)

By ordering the DOD to cut defense spending by $400 billion, Obama has put the cart before the horse. He has ordered massive defense spending cuts and has told the DOD to find out how exactly to make these cuts.

I am appalled, but not surprised, by the fact that Obama is “committed” to reducing defense spending. He’s a wimpy weak Dhimmicrat, just like almost all of his party colleagues.

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=64583

The Heritage Foundation has rightly commented that:

“The President’s accounting failures aside, there’s an even bigger problem at work. Obama is of the belief that, for starters, $400 billion can be cut from the defense budget over the next 10 years without putting the military at risk. That’s in addition to the approximately $400 billion already cut by the Administration during the previous two years. In turn, he would take those dollars and apply them to pay for his pet projects at home.

The President is proposing those cuts irrespective of the military’s needs.

Outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that ill-conceived cuts to defense spending could increase America’s vulnerability in a “complex and unpredictable security environment” and that “the ultimate guarantee against the success of aggressors, dictators, and terrorists in the 21st century, as in the 20th, is hard power—the size, strength, and global reach of the United States military.”

But with the President’s proposed cuts, America’s base defense budget would be at its lowest point in more than 60 years (as a percentage of America’s GDP). Meanwhile, the threats Gates spoke of continue to materialize, while challenges remain in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and throughout the Middle East.

And then there’s the state of U.S. forces. Secretary Gates and the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel have agreed that the U.S. went on a “procurement holiday” in the 1990s. Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz has stated that the present fleet of 187 F–22 fighters creates a high risk for the U.S. military in meeting its operational demands. The U.S. Navy has the fewest number of ships since America’s entrance into World War I. And yet the President sees fit to slash defense?

Contrary to Obama’s belief, the defense budget is not an ATM from which he can pull cash to pay for other projects. And he certainly can’t do it without causing further damage to U.S. military readiness. The Constitution demands that the U.S. government provide for the common defense. That’s a fact the President should keep in mind as he looks for ways to increase domestic spending amid a debt crisis.”

Sadly, yes, Obama sees it fit to deeply cut defense spending, as do his party colleagues and most Republicans (with few honorable exceptions such as Howard McKeon, Allen West, and Randy Forbes) – despite the fact that the PLAN is already larger than the US Navy, Russia and China are waging an arms race against the US, the Russian Navy has more SSBNs than the USN, the USAF’s current fleet of aircraft is the smallest and the oldest it has ever flown (with an average aircraft age of 24 years), the USAF’s ICBMs date back to the 1970s and need to be replaced,the USAF has only 20 stealthy bombers, and access-denial weapons are making current and potential future war theaters unsurvivable and unaccessible for nonstealthy aircraft and warships. The US military has huge legitimate modernization needs, yet both Democrats AND Republicans are committed to radically reducing defense spending, as is Obama.

It is utterly unacceptable for Obama to use defense spending as an ATM from which to finance his pet projects.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/07/07/what-obama-doesnt-know-about-defense-spending/

On Panetta’s hearing and the related lies of the media

On June 9th, Leon Panetta testified during his confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense. He kept most of his cards closed. He gave only generalistic answers to most of the questions asked, unless they pertain to terrorist organizations and intel data, but nonetheless some of the statements made by him and by others are worth restating (quoting) here.

When asked by Sen. John Cornyn about whether defense spending is the cause of America’s fiscal crisis, Leon Panetta said that he does not believe that defense spending is, by any means, a cause of „the huge deficits that we’re incurring today” and that he agrees with Robert Gates that, no matter how big the defense budget might be, it is not the cause of America’s fiscal woes. Sen. Cornyn apparently agreed with that. Nonetheless, Cornyn said that “some cuts will have to be made to the defense budget, but I hope we’re not going to whack the defense budget and give ourselves a new “peace dividend”, and that Americas are frustrated that the DOD cannot produce auditible financial statements and has not yet become audit-ready (although the USMC is already audit-ready or at least has made big progress in that regard). (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onYI8WiiTe4)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onYI8WiiTe4

The Senators universally praised him and some of them promised to vote for him. As HumanEvents noted shortly after the hearing:

“Although several members of Code Pink and other war protesters showed up holding antiwar signs prior to the hearing, they settled down before Panetta took his seat, and the entire event was rather low-key.

Members didn’t put him on the hot seat, it was more of a love seat—from his role in hunting down Osama bin Laden to his experience as a former congressman.

Panetta, 72, bantered back and forth with Democrats and Republicans for four hours before the panel adjourned to executive session to question him privately.

If the public reception by the Armed Services Committee is any indicator, Panetta’s nomination as secretary of the Defense Department will sail through Senate confirmation before July 1 with little opposition.

“I can’t wait to vote for your confirmation,” said Richard Blumenthal, (D.-Conn.).

“The President has put together an A+ national security team,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-N.C.).  “I can’t wait to vote for you.”

Sen. James Inhofe (R.-Okla.) kept his opening remarks brief, but allowed that he too will support Panetta’s confirmation.”

The URL: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=44066

During his confirmation hearing, Panetta said some things that I agree with, and some things that I disagree with.

I agree with him that “we are not free if we are not secure”, as his father told him. I agree with him that, as he said earlier, defense spending is not a cause of America’s fiscal woes. I agree with him that the American people do not need to choose between a fiscally disciplined federal government and a strong national defense.

He was right to say that “There has been no shortage of war. Our forces are stretched by combat that has lasted nearly a decade.”

He was right to say: “If confirmed, my No. 1 job will be to ensure America continues to have the best-trained, best-equipped and strongest military in the world, in order to make sure we can protect our country.”

But I vehemently disagree with him on the point that “budget cuts will be tough, but necessary.” They are not necessary. America does not need, and should not, cut defense spending. The budget can, should, and must be balanced without defense spending cuts. Defense spending accounts for less than 15% of the total federal budget and a tiny 3.50% of GDP. It does not need to be cut. The only way to tackle the huege annual federal budget deficit is to cut the costs of entitlements.

Some Senators also said some stupid things during that hearing. Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), the SASC’s chairman, said that defense spending has to be cut as a matter of political and financial principle and that the cuts will have to be large. He’s wrong. America does not need, and should not, cut defense spending. The budget can, should, and must be balanced without defense spending cuts. Defense spending accounts for less than 15% of the total federal budget and a tiny 3.50% of GDP. It does not need to be cut. The only way to tackle the huege annual federal budget deficit is to cut the costs of entitlements. As for political and financial principle – it is politically, constitutionally, financially, and militaqrily wrong to treat defense spending as just another kind of spending. Defense spending is devoted to the federal government’s #1 constitutional duty: defense. the Constitution emphasies it like no other role of the federal governmnment. And, as Panetta’s father has said, Americans will not be free if they won’t be safe.

Unfortunately, Sen. McCain also claimed that “defense spending will have to be cut”, although he warned against making arbitrary or large defense spending cuts.

Sen. McCain has also slammed DOD acquisition programs and called for the closure of every DOD acquisition program that is even slightly behind schedule or over-budget. THat’s ridiculous, and this would mean unilaterally disarming the US military by closing the vast majority of DOD weapon programs. Unfortunately, this was not the first time that McCain had called for such stupid policies – his 2008 presidential campaign was the first time.

The SOros-funded , extremey liberal pseudo-think-tank “ThinkProgress” lambasted Panetta for correctly saying that defense budgets are not causing budget deficits and claimed that America’s defense budget is “huge”. They’re lying (and that’s what they’re paid to do). The FY2010 defense budget ($534 bn in CY2009 dollars, $550 bn in CY2011 dollars) amounted to just 14.87% of the total FY2010 federal budget and a paltry 3.65% of GDP. The FY2011 defense budget ($530 bn) amounts to less than 15% of the total federal budget and a paltry 3.50% of GDP. The proposed FY2012 defense budget, if approved, would amount to less than 15% of the total federal budget and a tiny 3.78% of GDP. So no, the defense budget is not huge, and Panetta was right to say that defense spending is not to blame for America’s fiscal woes.

Congressional Republicans surrender to the Dems, offer BIGGER defense cuts than those demanded by Obama

Congressional Republicans have once again proven that they are, with few exceptions, dishonorable, worthless, spineless worms. How? By capitulating to President Obama and Congressional Democrats on the question of defense cuts and offering almost twice BIGGER defense cuts than those demanded by Obama.

In April, Obama proposed to cut defense spending (not including GWOT spending) by $400 billion over the next 12 years, i.e. by an average of $33 billion per year. But recently, during debt-ceiling talks, Republicans have offered defense cuts almost twice as big, over a period of 10 rather than 12 years, if only the Democrats and President Obama agree to preserve the Bush tax cuts. Thus, preserving the Bush tax cuts is more important to them than funding America’s national defense! And preserving the Bush tax cuts (which did benefit the economy) for a paltry 2 years will NOT mean that there will be no tax hikes of any kind. Republicans have reportedly agreed to tax hikes that will be disguised as “eliminations of tax breaks” and “tax loophole closures”.

The Hill reports that:

“National security spending could be cut by as much as $700 billion in a deal to raise the debt limit, defense sources said.

That’s almost twice the amount President Obama originally proposed.

Obama directed the Defense Department and other national-security agencies to slash $400 billion by 2023. But in the closed-door talks to raise the debt ceiling, larger Pentagon funding cuts have been seriously discussed, several sources said, putting the number between $600 billion and $700 billion over a decade.

A final decision has yet to be made, but the sources said negotiators have not ruled out making deeper cuts than Obama planned.

As the Aug. 2 deadline for defaulting on the debt approaches, GOP members have dug in and said any accord cannot include tax hikes.

Sources told The Hill recently that GOP negotiators are ready to break with recent Republican ideology by trading large defense cuts for not raising taxes as part of a debt-ceiling deal.”

The Hill is wrong, however, to say that providing for a strong defense is only a matter of “recent Republican ideology”. It was also because of the Constitutional REQUIREMENT, stated in Art. IV, Sec. 8, to provide for a defense that will be able to protect each state against invasion. The Preamble to the Constitution explicitly states that one of the reasons why the Constitution was writen and the federal government was created was “to provide for the common defense”.

Yet, as the Hill article proves, Republican negotiators have decided to “trade large defense cuts for not raising taxes as part of a debt-ceiling deal.” In other words, for Congressional Republicans, America’s defense is nothing more than a bargaining chip, something can be “traded” for a promise of no tax hikes. For them, it’s something that can be traded for something else and sold as if it were a mere civilian commodity. Such a policy wrong, despicable, treasonous, and contrary to the Constitution, which, as stated above, REQUIRES a strong defense.

Folks, please call your Representatives and Senators and tell them that you will NEVER vote for them again if they vote for any further defense cuts.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/07/tax_increases_or_massive_defense_cuts.html; http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/defense-homeland-security/170057-defense-faces-700b-spending-cut

Congressional Republicans plan to surrender to the Dems by deeply cutting defense spending

I thought that the Republican Party was supposed to be the party that stands for a strong defense. I guess I was wrong.

The WaPo has recently reported that Republican leaders, and many rank-and-file Congressional Republicans, have agreed to deep defense cuts (and tax hikes masquerading as “elimination of deductions”) as a concession in exchange for a budget/debt ceiling deal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/gop-compromise-on-debt-cut-military-spending/2011/06/25/AGPrGBmH_story_1.html

Several facts need to be pointed out.

Firstly, Republicans can get significant concessions from the Democrats (though not a full-scale retrenchment of the welfare state, as desirable as that goal is – for that, they’ll need the Senate and the WH), because, as Marc Thiessen has pointed out, Republicans hold ALL of the cards.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..story.html

Republicans don’t have to agree to anything. On the other hand, if Republicans don’t vote to raise the debt ceiling, America will default on its debt and the Democrats (plus Obama) will be blamed for that.

But don’t worry, folks, Republicans have already decided to surrender, and they plan to surrender by agreeing to the Democrats’ BIGGEST DEMAND: deep defense cuts (which Eric ‘Dual Loyalty’ Cantor and Kevin McCarthy have been pushing for for a long time). This is the Dems’ biggest demand. As they (including Barney Frank) have publicly admitted, gutting America’s defense is even MORE important to them than raising taxes. They’re not out to “soak the rich”, they’re out to gut America’s defense.

And this is the worst blunder that Republicans can make. When you negotiate with other people, you DON’T give in to their BIGGEST demand (not unless you obtain huge concessions outweighing your own first). By giving in to the Dems’ biggest demand, Republicans have ensured that the Dems will have NO incentive whatsoever to give them anything back. Now that Republicans have accepted their biggest demand, they have nothing important to demand (and to pay a price for).

Remember the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan negotiated with Gorbachev? The Soviet leader’s biggest demand was that Reagan give up his SDI program. Reagan demanded an INF Treaty that would ban all American and Soviet IRBMs. He refused to give in to Gorbachev’s biggest demand, because he knew that if he did that, he would’ve been unable to obtain any concessions from the Kremlin. So he NEVER surrendered the SDI program.

BTW, the French have called me and have told me that they’re appalled by how easily Republicans have surrendered. They say that even they don’t surrender that easily.

Last but not least, a huge majority of Americans opposes a debt ceiling hike under any circumstances – with or without spending cuts. That being the case, why on Earth give in to any of the Dems’ demands? Why gut defense? Why hike taxes? There’s no reason to do so.