DON'T DARE CUT MEDICARE!!

BEFORE TRIMMING THE BLOATED DEFENSE BUDGET

What is happening today in Washington is so predictable, it is sad. Nothing changes! Elections come and go. One party wins decisively, but as they did in Ancient Rome, the Optimates (read plutocrats, oligarchs, modern Republicans) are making a sneak end-run around the Populares (progressives, liberals, etc.) as they have since time immemorial to get their way. The end run is an attempt to get the administration to cut our admittedly skimpy entitlements and social safety net (one of the weakest and least effective in the modern industrialized world) while protecting the bloated, massive military budget (the largest in the world) from cuts. These reactionary forces plan to undermine a weak necessary program in deference to military expenditures which actually need trimming down from spending levels presently higher than what they were during the Cold War. We now spend on our military ( in equal dollars) more than what we had spent during the Cold War when we actually had a serious military threat--not the leather-sandaled, rag-headed local insurgency presently arrayed against us in ever-diminishings numbers.

The most recent example of this attempt to foist the burden to the poor and middle class is the Republican post-election push to balance the budget and overturn the sequester act that would force an approximately ten percent cut across the board on the budget--and an equal amount on both defense and non defense spending. The powerful defense contractors--those companies infamous for having historically overcharged the US for military material and services since the Revolutionary War--have run to their friends in the military and Congress. As the time nears for a decision they shout into the ears of their paid lobbyists, Senators and Congressman. "NO CUTS TO DEFENSE SPENDING!!!". Unfortunately, the recipients of Medicare, and Medicaid have no comparable powerful voice to support their cause (except for a few, hoary and courageous souls like Sen. Bernie Sanders from Vermont). What these "Optimates" are attempting is to satisfy their financial supporters in the industry and their own voter-rejected ideology. The defense they are interested in the the defense of military contractor profits.

Way back in May 10th of this year, Dean Baker, (US News and World Report, "Defense Budget is Mismanaged") who is no progressive himself, but a co-director of Center For Economic Progress, who has worked for the World Bank, and authored: "The End of Loser Liberalism". Baker had this to say about what the Republicans are up to. "The Republican budget proposals are designed to save the defense contractors profits not the defense of the nation." Baker poses this question: "Should we cut cancer research to pay for more bombers? This is the agenda of many Republicans, as we start to get closer to the date where the sequestration rules from a 2011 budget agreement will actually bite. The deal was structured so that the immediate budget cuts were limited. The big hit was scheduled to take place in January 2013. At that point, spending on both the military and discretionary portion of the federal budget were scheduled to fall by roughly 10 percent."

Baker notes that even if the "drastic " ten percent cuts the sequestration would impose on the Defense Department went into place, military spending will continue to be 20% HIGHER, in 2013, than it was back in 2000.

But some will say that cutting the admittedly bloated defense budget can not fix the economy because defense spending is just another form of "jobs program". That is true, but dollars spent on defense generate fewer jobs-per-expended-dollar than almost any other government spending. Investment in education for one, produces more jobs per dollar spent. (According to a University of Massachusetts at Amherst study, education spending produces almost three times the number of jobs per dollar spent compared to military spending.) Therefore cutting defense spending could actually help the jobs problem by moving funds from less "jobs incentive" defense expenditures into spending which actually produces more jobs per dollar spent.

In August 3, 2011, Fareed Zakaria wrote a Washington Post opinion piece concerning the sequester legislation and the possibility of a $60 to $70 billion dollar annual cut to defense spending, in which he concludes..."let the guillotine fall".

To support his contention Mr. Zakaria offered a concise history of our burgeoning defense spending. He states: "First, some history. The Pentagon’s budget has risen for 13 years, which is unprecedented. Between 2001 and 2009, overall spending on defense rose from $412 billion to $699 billion, a 70 percent increase, which is larger than in any comparable period since the Korean War. Including the supplementary spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, we spent $250 billion more than average U.S. defense expenditures during the Cold War — a time when the Soviet, Chinese and Eastern European militaries were arrayed against the United States and its allies. Over the past decade, when we had no serious national adversaries, U.S. defense spending has gone from about a third of total worldwide defense spending to 50 percent. In other words, we spend more on defense than the planet’s remaining countries put together.

Therefore, our best and the most just course forward seems to be this: FIRST cut military spending to levels that are in correspondence with our actual and theoretical future military threats. There is no question that just by eliminating waste and duplication we can save $70 billion to $100 billion dollars annually. Just cutting out a few of our unnecessary 900 or more military bases around the world (many in long ago pacified Europe fit that bill) could do that. Eliminating a few of our bases in Japan which is a veritable US national military outpost bristling with armaments, would accomplish that as well. No one wants to "hollow out" our military...but the US now alone spends more than all the other nations in the world combined. No one can match those expenditures. After all, who are our most threatening opponents? Are they not North Korea, or weak, economically unstable Iran? Do we have to maintain a huge military for these insignificant opponents? Hardly! That would be like raising up a bank-safe to drive a ten penny nail rather than a tack hammer.

It's time to face the facts of our over-stuffed, over extended, massive defense budget which was born during the World War, then grew to a monster during the long Cold War. Those days are over. Today we face different threats. Economic , infrastructure, health care and educational problems need our attention, both intellectually and financially in order for us to compete in the modern world. We can not adequately prepare for those problems and our future while sinking our wealth into wasteful, unnecessary military hardware and adventurism. Let's not continue to be a nation armed to the teeth and bulging with outdated and useless weaponry while the rest of the world quietly advances beyond us to financial and economic ascendency with investments in infrastructure, health care, education and energy technology.

Don't dare cut healthcare, cancer research, environment, education programs and infrastructure investments while leaving our defense expenditures to useless burgeoning growth. That course is a retreat into the past and ultimate defeat. Let's move ahead into the 21 century. Let us advance to compete----not to fight.

Get the picture?

rjk