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Brian4Liberty
11-16-2017, 10:03 PM
There is Nothing Patriotic or Conservative About Our Bloated Defense Budget (http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2017/november/16/there-is-nothing-patriotic-or-conservative-about-our-bloated-defense-budget/)
Written by John J. Duncan, Jr. - Thursday November 16, 2017


Several times over my 29 years in Congress I have wondered whether there are any fiscal conservatives at the Pentagon.

It seems that the Defense Department is just like every other gigantic bureaucracy. When it comes to money, the refrain is always “more, more, more.”

On November 14, the House passed what one Capitol Hill paper described as a “$700 billion compromise defense bill.” It was $80 billion over the budget caps and many billions more than even President Trump had requested.

I opposed almost all the major initiatives of the Obama administration. But it was false to say that the Defense Department was “depleted” or “eviscerated” during those years, or that now we must “rebuild the military.”

In fact, public relations experts in future years should conduct studies about how the Defense Department has been able to convince the public it has been cut when it is getting more money than ever.

Defense Department appropriations have more than doubled since 2000. In addition, the Department has gotten extra billions in several supplemental or emergency appropriation bills.

The military construction bill is a separate bill that has added another $109.5 billion over the last 10 years. It would be hard to find any U.S. military base any place in the world that has not had several new buildings constructed over the last few years.

In fiscal year 2016, we spent over $177 billion on new equipment, guns, tanks, etc. We have spent similar amounts for many years. Most of this equipment does not wear out or have to be replaced after just one year.

It is ironic that the only President in the last 60 or 70 years who has tried to rein in defense spending is the only President in that period who spent most of his career in the military.

In Evan Thomas’ book, Ike's Bluff, when told by his top staffer that he could not reduce defense spending, President Eisenhower said if he gave another star to every general who cut his budget, there would be “such a rush to cut costs you’ll have to get out of the way.”

The book also quotes Eisenhower as saying “Heaven help us if we ever have a President who doesn’t know as much about the military as I do.”
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No true fiscal conservative could ever justify spending many billions more than even President Trump requested.

Our national debt recently went over the $20 trillion level. A few days ago, it was reported that the deficit for fiscal 2017 was $666 billion. This fiscal year, it may be even higher.

Conservatives used to be against huge deficit spending. They also used to be against massive foreign aid. Much of what we have been doing in both Iraq and Afghanistan, training police and farmers, repairing electrical and water systems, even making small business loans, etc., is pure foreign aid.
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More: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2017/november/16/there-is-nothing-patriotic-or-conservative-about-our-bloated-defense-budget/

osan
11-21-2017, 07:37 AM
There seem to be two basic issues here. Come on boys and girls, and lets take a look:


In fact, public relations experts in future years should conduct studies about how the Defense Department has been able to convince the public it has been cut when it is getting more money than ever.

OK, so there's the first issue. Lying. I'm not even going to strain myself trying to be "fair" by positing the possibility that this is all just fumbling and bumbling. That bit is used by some to either seem charitable (they MIGHT not be criminals), or to make them look like idiots. In the latter case, those at the top don't give a rat's patootie what you think, so even were it the case, public opinion would count for nothing in practicable terms... which is to say that it would change nothing.



No true fiscal conservative could ever justify spending many billions more than even President Trump requested.


Perhaps, but this touches upon the second issue: there exist those who are not us that would bring us harm. Some will call this paranoid delusion, but I must disagree. Consider the supposedly now-defunct Soviet Union. It's stated raison d'être was to spread "communism" to the far-flung corners of the world. While the now so-called "Russian Federation" may not hold quite the same goal, it cannot be assumed by people in the position of the Meaner (in terms of knowledge) that they no longer pose a threat. The same may be said of China, perhaps trebly so.

I am not suggesting that they even pose direct military threats in the immediate ways that had been assumed during the cold war. Perhaps the threat is more cultural and economic. But with such threats there must be material means to back them, which are manifest in the huge military establishments of those two large political blocs. Yes yes, they dwarf in comparison with ours in terms of spending - nobody with brains and the least honesty would argue against that. But even were we to pull back our spending to their levels, it could be well argued that we would still need to spend at least that much in order to maintain some sort of parity of threat, such threats being perhaps the best defense in a world run by madmen.

Even if we dropped all foreign aid this afternoon, as well as the so-called "social programs", and all other wasteful spending such as that on public schools and the like, my question would be whether it would be rational and even marginally well-advised to do the same with the military. That is, not rolling it back to parity spending (however one might even measure that, given the differences in not just currency, but manifold economic differences), but to something we might all hypothetically agree upon as constituting "bare bones" budgets for the truer purpose of the military: rational defense of the realm.

The Russians and Chinese do not appear to be doing this, though I am no expert on the matter and may be substantially mistaken. But if we assume I am not completely wrong on the matter, then the question arises as to whether it makes rational sense for us to do less than they do? The answer seems to turn on several issues, not the least of which is how deeply in cahoots, if at all, are the Chinese with the Americans, Russians, and so forth? How deeply and broadly do the globalist tentacles actually reach? Does that even matter? I ask because if Theye want us to dissipate our national prosperity on idiotic military spending and we say "no thankyouverymuch", might they not simply ramp up the real threat, assuming the usual fear tactics fail to work on Johnny Average?

The real kicker here is that we, the little people, do not have access to the sorts of information that would allow us to decide just what is really going on in such terms. I do not doubt that this is not by any accident.

Practically speaking, it seems we can only go by appearances... which means we are really in a very tight corner because where global politics are concerned, very little can be trusted. But if we are to do anything beyond throwing up our hands and saying "woe is me", we have to start somewhere, and even if appearances cannot be trusted, we do have knowledge of what is right. I would therefore start there and work backward... but I digress.

The answer to the question of what to do about issue #1 seems clear: send the liars to the military barracks for some gravel-production experience. Let draconian punishments advise all future comers. This should be the standard circumstance for all who assume positions of so-called "public service".

Issue 2 is much thornier, it would seem to me. Does anyone here advocate for wholesale dissolution of the military, given what our neighbors are doing?