Having spent us into a major hole in order to massage and reward his political allies, Barack Hussein Obama is looking right at defense spending in a major effort to dredge up about $100 billion.
The strategery will be to sell this as 'deficit reduction' but I think all but the True Believers understand it will go towards furthering Obama's domestic agenda.Backing him up will be SecDef Robert 'Don't hurt Iran' Gates.
On the other side? A guy named Congressman Buck McKeon ( R-CA) the incoming head of the House Armed Services Committee. This guy:
As far as he's concerned, rooting out inefficiencies is just fine, but he'll be damned if he wants our defense budget gutted like that. In fact, he wants an increase!
"One percent real growth in the defense budget over the next five years is a net cut for investment and procurement accounts. A defense budget in decline portends an America in decline. It will undermine our ability to project power, strengthen our adversaries and weaken our alliances."
He's exactly right, of course. Power you can't or won't project is worthless, and your allies and enemies get that message quickly.The last two years are a good example.
If I have to bet on whose going to win this one, I'd put my money on the stubborn guy from California. Who just happens to be my Congressman, in the 25th District.
Having been an ex-bank chairman, a successful businessman, and someone with over a decade's worth of work in Congress on defense, he not only understands national security and its requirements but how to pay for it all, and how to pick out what's important. And as a former LDS missionary, Buck McKeon understands sustained effort and yes, stubborn.
Those clean cut, shirt and tied young men you see riding their bicycles are an interesting and unusual lot. They're invariably polite, pleasant, and always willing to discuss the Church of the LDS and theology in general over a glass of lemonade.
But they're also highly committed to what they're doing for the most part - they'd have to be - and grinding away at missionary work for a year or so builds some inner calluses and teaches these young men something important.
I've only found two areas of American life that seem to create similar kinds of inner calluses - the military and the Chabad Movement.Both also call for a deep commitment to something bigger than self.
So I doubt Buck McKeon is going to have a problem with the likes of Barack Obama...especially since McKeon will likely be joined by freshman Duncan Hunter Jr., who from all accounts is very like his father.
-selah-
2 comments:
One of the few mandates the constitution imposes on the federal government is the military. There is no constitutional authority for welfare. The federal government spends about $1 trillion a year on all welfare. Why not cut there? Better yet since it is not one of the things the constitution allows the federal government to do why not eliminate it completely?
anon @ 1:14
it all comes down to interpretation.
if you read article 1, section 8 of the constitution, there is a phrase, "to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States".
yes, i know i mis-spelled defense.
that's how they spelled it.
every social program ever conceived can find it's roots in that phrase.
or as liberals phrase it, provide of the general welfare of the United States. of course, omitting common defence, entirely.
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