There is a candidate…

Folks, on January 3rd, Iowa Republicans will cast their votes for their preferred candidate for the GOP Presidential nomination, with voters in other states to follow suit thereafter. I know that most Republican candidates want a credible candidate who is conservative across the board, doesn’t have a lot of baggage, and can defeat Barack Obama.

Does any of the 9 contenders fit that description? Yes.

There is a candidate who is conservative across the board – on social, economic, and defense/foreign policy issues, one who will protect unborn children, defend traditional marriage, cut and simplify taxes, eliminate unconstitutional federal agencies, rein in all three branches of the federal government, and reverse President Obama’s defense cuts.

There is a candidate who has always, consistently, been a conservative, because his conservative views are informed by his political principles and his religious and moral convictions.

There is a candidate who is not afraid to take on Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the liberal judges on the SCOTUS bench to uproot Washington DC, and recognizes that merely trimming around the edges won’t do.

There is a candidate who has served his Country in the military, as a volunteer, around the world, not sitting in the United States safely in military bases like Ron Paul did.

There is a candidate who has stayed married, and loyal, to his wife, his childhood sweatheart whom he married in 1982. He has never had any affairs, despite certain rumors to the contrary.

There is a candidate who doesn’t apologize for his conservative views and doesn’t pander to people, instead saying what he truly thinks.

There is a candidate who believes America is a shining beacon for the world, not the cause of all world evil as some claim.

There is a candidate who is such a loyal friend of Israel that he has received the Defender of Jerusalem Award.

There is a candidate who has decades of experience of governing and leading, and during that time has built a conservative record, cutting taxes, cutting spending, reducing the size and scope of government, securing America’s southern border, and creating a pro-business environment.

That candidate is the current Governor of Texas, Rick Perry.

Definite proof that Obama’s reset policy has abysmally failed

In 2009, President Obama initiated a policy of “reset” with Russia, i.e. a policy of unilateral concessions and capitulations to Russia based, in the best case, on the naive hope that Russia would reciprocate. As was bound to happen with any policy of unilateral concessions, it has failed: Russia has not reciprocated at all.

Yet, for the last 2.5 years, President Obama, his Administration, and leftist media around the world have been feeding the American people with BS propaganda that Obama had supposedly repaired relations with Russia, that this was “an unqualified success”, and that the “reset” policy has produced real, big benefits for the US, and cited the disastrous New START treaty – which favors Russia – as one of those benefits.

This was never true, and I’ve disproven this a few times already. Now Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has put the final nail in the coffin of the “reset” policy, by publicly threatening to withdraw Russia from the New START treaty, refuse to sign any new arms reduction agreements, strengthen Russia’s nuclear deterrent, and deploy Iskander ballistic missiles in the Kaliningradskaya Oblast along its border with Poland if the US deploys ANY missile defense systems in Europe. That is, Russia is demanding that the US forego ANY plans to deploy ANY missile defense systems in Europe.

BBC News reports that:

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned that missiles could be deployed on the EU’s borders if the US pursues its missile defence plans.

In a televised statement, he said “modern weapons systems” could be deployed in Kaliningrad if Russia, the US and Nato failed to come to a deal.

He added that Moscow may opt out of the New Start arms deal agreed with the US.

Washington wants an anti-missile shield ready by 2020 but Moscow considers the idea a threat to its nuclear forces.

The US says the shield is intended to provide protection from the potential missile threat posed by countries like Iran.

Washington had originally intended to locate major parts of its missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic under Bush-era plans.

But Russia had objected vigorously, and when President Obama took office he scaled-back these ambitions.

However, Moscow has yet to be satisfied that the revised plans do not pose a threat to its interests.

BBC actually worded its news article mildly. Russia is demanding a total cessation of any plans to deploy any ballistic missile defense systems in Europe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15857431

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/

China is not America’s banker

China is not America’s banker, contrary to what many people have claimed. They’ve also claimed that because China is supposedly America’s banker, America must continue the Kissingerian policy of appeasement towards China. But they’re wrong.

China is not America’s banker. China must buy American T-bonds because it cannot buy anything else. It cannot buy the T-bonds of other countries, nor gold, nor anything else. The huge amount of money that China earns every year on exports is so big that it can be invested only in American T-bonds.

America doesn’t need to ask China to buy US T-bonds, because it could ask someone else to do so (e.g. Japan). Most of America’s public debt is NOT owed to China. 40% of it is owed to the Federal Reserve and other governmental agencies; i.e. this part is owed by one part of the US government to another. Of the other 60% part, only a small part is owed to China. Most of the foreign debt owed by the US to foreign countries is NOT owed to China.

Also, America is China’s biggest export market. The US can buy cheap products from emerging countries other than China (e.g. Vietnam, India), so it doesn’t need China as a producer. (If the Congress instituted protective tariffs, America wouldn’t need any imported products from anyone, except fuels, and the American industry would rebound.) But China cannot survive without America as an export market. 17.7% of China’s export goes to the US. America is China’s biggest export market. China’s total exported cargos, as of 2008, were worth $1435 bn. 17.7% of 1435 bn is $253.995 bn. Only an economic suicider would give up such a huge amount of money. And China would do so if it ruined the US economy (e.g. by selling its stock of American T-bonds).

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html

America doesn’t need China. But China needs America.

Why America needs the FairTax

Today is April 15th, Tax Day. By this deadline, all American taxpayers must complete and send their federal tax forms. As a dear friend of mine remarked on Jefferson’s birthday, “he would be horrified to learn that I’m spending his birthday doing my *FEDERAL* taxes!”

She’s right. He would be. Because it’s unacceptable that hard-working Americans who have to pay their state and local taxes and (in most states) complete their state and local tax forms, must also do this unnecessary, long, costly paperwork of figuring how much they owe the feds and complete their federal tax forms.

The federal tax code, measuring 66,000 pages, is an extremely complicated mess. It’s extremely expensive to comply with – for individuals and businesses alike. They, combined, spend $265 bn per year to just figure out how much they owe. That’s $265 bn per year that could be used for more productive purposes. That’s effectively a 22.2% tax surcharge on every tax dollar you pay.

For small businesses, the compliance cost of this huge, complex tax code is so high that it actually exceeds the cost of tax rates themselves. Every year they pay $3-4 just to comply with the federal tax code per every tax dollar they pay to the federal government. That is, the compliance costs of the federal tax code are, for small businesses, 3-4 times higher than federal tax rates!

America cannot afford this complex Marxist tax code any longer. And no, Chairman Ryan’s “tax reform proposal” (which is actually an old, rehashed RSC proposal which would create another complex Marxist tax code on top of the existing one) is not a serious proposal, not even at the first glance.

The ONLY way to solve this program is the FairTax, which would entirely abolish the current tax code and the IRS, and to repeal the 16th Amendment.

http://www.fairtax.org/PDF/TestimonyofKarenWalby1-20-11.pdf

Julian Assange is a false hero. No wonder why Libertarians like him.

Libertarians (who, like Assange, hate America), have been portraying Julian Assange as a hero, and his cause as the cause of free speech. They’re mistaken.

Free speech is the right to freely preach and publish YOUR OWN opinions, claims, products, and documents – not those of other people. Even if you discount laws protecting classified information (which was classified for good reasons), there is still copyright law. In no civilized country in the world are you allowed, under any circumstances, to publish other people’s products and documents without the express permission of the author, unless they’ve relinquished copyright or have themselves slated the speicfic products or documents to be published.

In no civilized country in the world are you allowed to publish someone else’s bills, checks, account balance sheets, or private documents. No one except the recipient of a letter is authorized to publish it. There are many people sitting in prisons around the world right now for violation of this legal principle.

As for “secrecy laws”, former SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld refuted this argument on Nov. 30th, 2010, when he wrote on FB: “I was an original co-sponsor of the FOIA in 1966. There is a legal, appropriate way for declassifying information. It is not Wikileaks.”

What Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning have done is not “fight for free speech”, merely a casual crime, motivated by anti-Americanism, i.e. racism.

Also, I would like to note that:

1) Why the media hoopla about it? What is so extraordinary about these cable docs? The only thing I found out from them, and didn’t know earlier, was that much fewer people have died in Iraq and Afghanistan than what some leftist organizations claimed.

2) These documents are of dubious credibility. They’ve evidently been selected to fit a pre-established goal (to harm Western democracies, including the US), so why wouldn’t they have been doctored or even falsified? They cannot be compared with the original docs. Wikileaks has, to date, published NOTHING that would harm China, NK, Iran, Russia, Cuba, or Venezuela. Wikileaks clearly sympathizes with these countries, and is probably even financed by one of them.

3) Wikileaks is clearly a mere tool for some much more influential player. It has supposedly uploaded thousands of documents on the Net. Do you guys even realize how much time and bandwith it takes to upload any document onto the Net, even a simple picture? I once ran a primitive website about American military aircraft. Uploading a single large picture of a fighterplane took several minutes. Uploading thousands of documents onto the Net during a period of just 4-5 months is too big a task for a small band of crazy hackers. This had to be done by a much bigger, better-financed group.

4) Julian Assange is guilty. Unless he runs away like his fellow anti-American rapist Roman Polanski, he will be tried in Sweden by fair, impartial court, not by a kangaroo court in his beloved Russia, China, NK, or Iran.

5) The Army JAG Corps has charged Manning with “aiding the enemy” under Art. #104 of the UCMJ, but has requested only lifetime inprisonment, not the death penalty. It’s wrong. Manning has leaked thousands of cables to a foreign group led by a guy who hates the US, a group probably sponsored by countries hostile to the US. Thus, he deserves the death penalty.

What to expect from the 2011 CPAC

Today, the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) will commence in Washington, DC, at the Marriott Hotel. It’s scheduled to begin at 9:00AM, DC time, with an opening speech by ACU Chairman David A. Keene. If its publicly-stated planned agenda is any indication, it will be the worst CPAC ever staged, for three reasons.

Firstly, it will likely be a pseudoconservative, anti-military, anti-defense hatefest. A misguided group called “the Committee for the Republic” plans to stage an event under the title “Cut Pentagon spending, strengthen America” – as if defense cuts would lead to a stronger America. (They won’t.) Grover Norquist, the liberal, pro-jihadist, pro-Muslim President of ATR, married to a jihadist, plans to stage a 2-hour tirade (or “debate”) on the question “Should defense spending be open to budget cuts?” Given Norquist’s public statements, including his ridiculous Nov. 30 letter to Boehner and McConnell (which was a litany of lies) and the policies advocated by ATR, it’s likely Norquist will answer the question “yes” and lie to CPAC attendees about defense spending to cause them to favor defense spending cuts. In other words, he will likely deliver a 2-hour anti-defense-spending tirade.

Secondly, concurrently with Norquist’s tirade, a group of Nixon Center propagandists, including the Center’s President, Dimitri K. Simes (a Russian saboteur imported by President Nixon from the Soviet Union in 1973) will stage a debate called “Keeping America Safe in a Changing World”. Given that the Nixon Center advocates disarmament and a policy of appeasement towards the world’s worst regimes (including China), and glorifies Nixon’s utterly failed policy of detente, I can already foresee how will they propose to “keep America safe” – by disarming the US military and appeasingthe world’s worst dictatorships.

Thirdly, CPAC will be co-sponsored by the gay Republican organization GOProud, which supports gay marriage, i.e. reducing marriage to a mere contract between any two individuals. As a result of this issue, but only this issue, many conservative organizations, including the Heritage Foundation, have refused to sponsor CPAC or to attend it.

Not that this is any surprise to anyone who is familiar with the ACU and its chairman, David Keene. Keene is a longtime lobbyist (he’s currently a manager at the Carmen Lobbying Group firm), an advocate of civil liberties for jihadists, and simoultaneously a liberal establishment-type Republican masquerading as a grassroots conservative. In 2004, he endorsed Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey. In 2007, he endorsed Mitt Romney for the Presidency. Since Keene became chairman of the ACU (1984), that organization has betrayed its grassroots origins, its founding ideals, and conservative principles. These days, the annual CPAC it stages is the ultimate annual establishment event. It’s nothing more than an anti-defense hatefest and simoultaneously a lovefest for establishment Republicans such as Mitt Romney.

This CPAC that will begin today should not be called “conservative”.

Why defense spending should be exempted from cuts – in one post.

I sometimes get comments on my blog that ask: “Why is defense spending different? Why should it be sacrosanct? Why should it be exempted from spending cuts? Why put it off the table?”

This post is intended to explain that. There are several reasons why defense spending should not be reduced.

Firstly, 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 our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

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

Secondly, 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).

Thirdly, America’s defense investments are already inadequate. The FY2010 defense budget ($534 bn in 2009 dollars, $542.76 bn in today’s dollars according to the BLS Inflation Calculator) was the minimum necessary protect the Republic. The FY2011 defense budget authorized by the FY2011 ConRes is just $525 bn, $17 bn smaller than what was authorized for FY2010. This amount of money is inadequate to maintain the military and to replace the US military’s obsolete arsenal of weapons, most of which were made during the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s. And if the shipbuilding budget is not increased, the Navy might shrink to just 180 ships, according to the Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus.

Fourth, defense spending cuts would be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Even defense cuts on the scale proposed by the NTU, the PIRG, and the Deficit Reduction Commission would not even significantly reduce, let alone eliminate, the annual budget deficit ($1.4 trillion). What they WOULD do would be to weaken the military – severely so in the case of the defense cuts demanded by the NTU, the PIRG, and the Deficit Reduction Commission. Deny this all you want, former Congressman Armey, but it’s a fact. Defense spending cuts would lead to a weakened military.

Fifth, America’s enemies (whether it’s peer competitor like China and Russia, or rogue states like North Korea, Iran and Venezuela) are arming themselves and increasing their military spending. China has been increasing its military spending by double digits every year since 1989; Russia has doubled or tripled its military spending since 2000 (depending on the source); North Korea spends 25% of its GDP on the military; Iran and Venezuela are reaping the benefits of the $100/barrel price of oil. All of them are investing heavily in weaponry, mostly in access-denial weapons, i.e. equipment which is designed to deny the US military access to potential war theaters (e.g. submarines, SAMs, fighterplanes, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, malicious computer programs, anti-satellite weapons, naval mines, missile boats and gunboats). Gutting the military would always be foolish – but even more so in the face of these well-armed enemies.

Sixth, cutting defense spending would provide advocates of Big Government with a false, but convenient excuse to oppose and block reductions of domestic spending (discretionary and non-discretionary). Military spending is the ONLY category of federal spending they oppose. They don’t want domestic spending to be reduced, they want to protect it and they want to use defense spending cuts to protect their beloved socialist domestic programs from budget cuts. Barney Frank publicly admitted this fact in 2009. In short, when defense spending is put on the table, it sooner or later becomes the only thing on the table, as was the case during the late 1940s, the late 1950s, the 1970s and the 1990s. During each of these periods, defense spending was severely reduced and the military was gutted in 3 of these cases (the 1950s being an exception).

There is no reason to cut defense spending. There are six reasons to exempt it from spending cuts.

Defense: What would Reagan do?

Today is Reagan’s 100th birthday.

An often-asked question is “What would Reagan do?”

As America is struggling with $1.4 trillion annual budget deficits (and the deficit planned by Obama for FY2011 will raise the debt-to-GDP ratio to 100% if federal spending is not significantly reduced), the Congress and the nation are pondering what to do about defense spending – whether to reduce it or not. Many people, however, don’t ask whether to reduce defense spending, but how deeply to reduce it.

And what would Reagan do? Would he call for reductions of defense spending if he was alive today?

Because he’s no longer alive, it isn’t possible to say for 100% sure what he would do or say. But it is possible to say what he would probably do, on the basis of what he actually did or said while he was President.

When Ronald Reagan assumed office, the budget deficit was also big – it amounted to 6% of GDP! Nonetheless, Ronald Reagan chose NOT to reduce defense spending, as some people (e.g. William Kaufmann) called on him to do. He chose to increase it while shrinking domestic federal spending (e.g. by closing the Education Department and the DOE). He increased defense spending by 35%, from ca. $400 bn in FY1981 to ca. $554 bn in FY1985, and from 4.7% of GDP in FY1981 to 6.2% of GDP in FY1986. In fact, even during FY1981, Reagan and his Defense Secretary, the Honorable Caspar Weinberger, asked for and obtained a “supplemental” to the defense budget, because the defense budget devised by the Carter Administration was inadequate.

Dr Kim Holmes, Vice President of the Heritage Foundation, wrote in the WaTimes:

“On national defense, the lessons are clear. Reagan came to office after years of neglect of our armed forces and launched a military buildup that we live off to this day. He let the threats, not the bottom line, determine defense spending. He revived the B-1 bomber program that President Carter canceled and initiated many other defense programs. He famously told his military planners, “Defense is not a budget issue. You spend what you need.”And by the time he left office, he boosted defense spending 35 percent.

If not for Reagan‘s military buildup, we would not have had the advanced weaponry and excellent fighting force that won the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars with historically low U.S. casualties.”

Please note that, folks. Reagan said, “Defense is not a budget issue. You spend what you need.” That is because America’s defense budget should be based on the real needs of the military, not on artificial budgetary restrictions imposed by the OMB. Of course, the military should not get more money than it really needs, but during Reagan’s time, it did not, and nowadays, it doesn’t, either. The FY2011 defense budget ($525 bn) is actually inadequate.

Reagan was willing to spend whatever was necessary on defense, but not a cent more.

His budget recommendations were based on what his Joint Chiefs told him, NOT on what pacifist politicians like Barney Frank claimed was the real requirement. Reagan accepted the expert advice of his Joint Chiefs of Staff and his Secretary of Defense, although he did think independently.

Would Reagan endorse the defense cuts imposed by the Obama Administration and its mediocre Defense Secretary Robert Gates (who has never seen war)?

The answer is no. During the 1970s, Reagan saw crucial weapon programs cut or closed. When he became president, he reestablished them and started some new ones (e.g. the SDI). If he were alive today, he would’ve opposed the closures of the F-22, C-17, MKV, KEI, CSARX, NLOS, and European missile defense programs, and the cuts of the Airborne Laser, F-35, Ground Based Interceptor, and carrier replacement programs. He would’ve opposed Gates’ delays of the Next Generation Bomber program (de facto dictated by the OMB) and the ludicrous 2010 NPR and BMDR. He would’ve protested against the large force structure reductions conducted by the Bush and Obama Administrtions.

And what about the New START treaty? Would Reagan have signed it as it is now, or would he have rejected it?

Reagan called for a world without nuclear weapons, but in such a world, the US was to be protected by a vast missile defense network which would’ve negated the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal (not to mention the Chinese arsenal). This was the very goal of the SDI. The New START treaty not only calls for reductions of America’s nuclear arsenal and its arsenal of delivery systems down to inadequate levels, it also greatly restricts America’s missile defense. Moreover, even before the treaty was signed, Obama unilaterally gave up many missile defense programs, including the ABL, MKV, KEI, GBI and European missile defense programs (the latter was surrendered as a part of the price of Moscow’s signature of the treaty). Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave.

Reagan’s arms reduction treaty negotiators, including his chief negotiator General Ed Rowny, and many other former diplomats and Reagan Administration officials, including Ed Meese and Frank Gaffney, protested against this disastrous treaty.

So, what would Reagan do? He would’ve opposed reductions of defense spending. He would’ve opposed the Obama-dictated closures of crucial weapon programs. He would’ve opposed the New START treaty.

As the US celebrates Reagan’s 100th birthday, it is necessary to learn lessons from him and follow his guidance when determining America’s defense policies.

The irresponsible defense budget reducers vs Ronald Reagan

The opponents of a strong defense have not given up. Recently, several of them have once again opened their uninformed mouths and proposed deep defense budget cuts.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has proposed a 6% reduction of the defense budget. Rep. Jan Schakowsky has called for deep defense budget cuts (which the Illinois Democrat wants to be spent on liberal sacred cows, not used to balance the budget). A DOD-accredited liberal journalist called “Yushio” has called on the DOD to implement the recommendations of the utterly-discredited Deficit Reduction Commission, calling it “serious recommendations of serious people”.

All of them are wrong.

The DRC was composed mostly of unserious people: strident liberals like Erskine Bowles (Clinton’s WH Chief of Staff), then-Senator Judd Gregg (RINO-NH) and former Senator Alan Simpson (RINO-WY), as well as the libertarian anti-defense Senator from Oklahoma Tom Coburn. Their recommendations were unserious. They targeted ONLY the DOD for serious spending reductions; all other federal agencies would see their budgets reduced only slightly, with their budget cuts all combining to produce $100 bn of annual savings, while the DOD alone would have to produce another $100 bn of annual savings. The DRC called on Obama to close many crucial programs and to dramatically reduce the categories of defense spending that shouldn’t be reduced: the procurement budget and the R&D budget. It also embraced the isolationist policy of a “Fortress America” by calling for massive withdrawals of American troops from foreign countries.

The DOD’s budget ($525 bn in FY2011) is so small (just 14.87% of the total federal budget) that even deep reductions of it would not even dent the federal budget deficit ($1.29 trillion in FY2010), but they would gravely weaken the military.

An often-asked question is “What would Ronald Reagan do?” As for proposals of defense spending reductions and other proposals to weaken the US military, the answer is crystal clear: Ronald Reagan, the military’s Defender-in-Chief, the Strong-Defense-Conservative-in-Chief, the military’s Commander-in-Chief for 8 years, would’ve said “NO!” loudly and clearly.

And during his two terms, that is exactly what he was saying. He was called on by many people and organizations to dramatically reduce defense spending in order to balance the budget or (in the case of liberals) to prop up the socialist programs that liberals cherish. And during his time, liberals and libertarians were constantly exaggerating the size of the defense budget and the scale of waste and fraud that was being perpetrated.

What did Reagan do?

He firmly opposed defense spending reductions and pointed out the facts about the real size of the defense budget and the scale of waste and fraud. He also implemented – together with his Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger – a sweeping reform of the DOD and informed the nation of its results. Even when the budget deficit was growing, Reagan rightly refused to cut defense spending to reduce the budget deficit. And when the Congress passed a significantly reduced budget deficit, Reagan vetoed it as inadequate.

As Ronald Reagan said:

“Some people may take a different view, but if I had to choose the single most important reason, on the United States’ side, for the historic breakthroughs that were to occur during the next five years in the quest for peace and a better relationship with the Soviet Union, I would say it was the Strategic Defense Initiative, along with the overall modernization of our military forces.”

Of course, as stated above, Reagan also implemented a sweeping reform of the DOD. It entailed the abolition of unnecessary stuff and the elimination of all examples of waste. Here’s what Reagan said on the subject:

“During my 1980 campaign, I called federal waste and fraud a national scandal. We knew we could never rebuild America’s strength without first controlling the exploding cost of defense programs, and we’re doing it. When we took office in 1981, costs had been escalating at an annual rate of 14 percent. Then we began our reforms. And in the last two years, cost increases have fallen to less than 1 percent. We’ve made huge savings. Each F-18 fighter costs nearly $4 million less today than in 1981. One of our air-to-air missiles costs barely half as much.
Getting control of the defense bureaucracy is no small task. Each year the Defense Department signs hundreds of thousands of contracts. So yes, a horror story will sometimes turn up despite our best efforts. That’s why we appointed the first Inspector General in the history of the Defense Department. And virtually every case of fraud or abuse has been uncovered by our Defense Department, our Inspector General. Secretary Weinberger should be praised, not pilloried, for cleaning the skeletons out of the closet. As for those few who have cheated taxpayers or have swindled our Armed Forces with faulty equipment, they are thieves stealing from the arsenal of democracy, and they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Both quotes are from his February 1986 speech on defense issues. (http://reagan2020.us/speeches/address_on_national_security.asp)

So, even as Reagan significantly increased the overall defense budget, he reduced the unit costs of weapons and implemented a sweeping reform of the DOD, rooting out wasteful programs and expenditures. An increased defense budget did NOT mean relaxed fiscal discipline.

10 days from now, the nation will observe Reagan’s 100th birthday. A few weeks later, it will mark the 25th anniversary of that speech on defense issues. It’s ironic that as these anniversaries are approaching, a growing number of people are endorsing or proposing defense spending cuts and other policies to weaken the US military.

If the GOP wants to restore its credibility, it must say “no” to any proposals to reduce the overall defense budget.

UPDATE: Here’s info from Dr Kim Holmes, Vice President of the Heritage Foundation, about what would Reagan do today on the question of the defense budget: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/26/holmes-what-would-reagan-do/