Republicans and defense spending

Republican Presidential candidates continue talking like cuts in defense spending are off the table, and, astoundingly, not ruling out increases in defense spending.

The relationship Republicans have with defense spending is a lot like the relationship a hypochondriac has with a Doctor.  They always feel threatened and think they need more, no matter how irrational the fear.

I wish someone would ask them some questions like:

Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower (a professional soldier who knew a little about defense) said, as he was leaving office, that we should beware the military-industrial complex.  What did he mean?

How do you explain the fact the average American taxpayer pays nearly $2000 a year in taxes to support Defense spending while the average European (and almost everyone else in the world) pays under $500 a year?  What extra margin of safety are we buying with the additional $1500 per person per year?

What are we protecting by maintaining bases thousands of miles away from our shores?  How does having those bases help protect us from attack?

Responding to some current Republican economic arguments

I start this blog by with a preface - Democrats are far from perfect.   But these days Republicans are the problem.


I used to be Republican.  I wish they could really be an advocate for fiscally responsible government to counter the tendency of politicians to hand out government money to get elected.  But Republicans talk the talk but seldom walk the walk and the current crop of Republicans is living in a fantasy world where the answer to every problem is tax cuts.  Republicans discovered cutting taxes plays really well with voters - just like handing out candy plays well to kids.   The candy strategy has become an obsession.  

Fact: the Federal Governments income right now is the lowest it has been (in real dollars) since the 1950's - even though we have had two wars going on for nearly a decade.  The Republican approach to economics is sort of like quitting your job just as your kids are starting college.

Republicans try to paint Democrats as the reason we have a big deficit, saying Obama hasn't submitted a balanced budget in three years.  Here is my problem with this statement - it is factually correct but way out of context.  Its like accusing a fireman that has been trying to pull you out of a burning building of messing up your hair.  It ignores the fact Obama walked in the door facing the worst economic crisis since the great Depression.  If we had tried to balance our budget immediately we would probably be in a depression right now.  I would be real surprised if you could find even one reputable Republican economist (outside a partisan think tank) who would disagree with that assessment.  Not to mention a Congress full of Republicans many of whom seem to care more about defeating Obama than in making government work.

Some facts - the budget was balanced in 2001 when Mr Bush walked in the door and Republicans took control of both houses of Congress.  Republicans continued to control both houses of Congress and the Presidency until 2007 by which time the economy was already starting to melt-down and the deficit had already exploded.  That events of that six year period, coupled with the bailout to stop the free fall in financial markets, are the source of our current financial morass.  Mr Bush was the only President in history to cut taxes while a war was going on.   Mr Bush never vetoed a single spending bill of any kind, because they were filled with the kinds of handouts and freebies Republicans prefer. 

Republican commentators are fond of saying that the Democrats are paying for current spending with our children's money.  Here is an easily documented fact - lots of charts and graphs on the internet - since WW II the budget deficit has increased twice as much during Republican administrations as it has during Democratic administrations.  The biggest deficit explosions in the last thirty years happened during the Reagan/Bush administrations and the Bush Jr. administration.   The fact is Democrats have spent much of the last 30 years trying to patch up fiscal messes made by Republicans.

The current deadlock in Congress is remarkably similar to what was going on in Congress in 1990 to 1993.  Republicans had set the agenda during the Reagan years when they controlled the Senate and Mr Reagan was President.  They enacted big tax cuts without making cuts in spending and the deficit immediately began to shoot up.  In 1987 Democrats regained control of both the House and the Senate.  Republicans whose policy's had caused the big jump in the deficit suddenly became deficit hawks, lambasting Democrats as the cause of the deficit.  A budget deal was struck in 1990 that brought us to a balanced budget by late in the decade.  But by that time Republicans were already at more tax cuts and the cuts in regulation that triggered the financial collapse in 2008.  By 2001 Republicans had gained control of the House, Senate and Presidency (for the first time since 1921 to 1933).  They cut taxes and started handing out government money left and right, once again exploding the deficit.  Then they get out of power and suddenly they are deficit hawks again.  Only this time there policies are idiotic as well as hypocritical.  In 1990 the economy was basically pretty strong, although we did go into a recession.  Now we are flirting with a replay of the great depression.  Government spending is what has kept us afloat.  And they think now is the time to deflate the life raft.

Republicans credibility with me is gone.