Defense spending - The Public Must Lead the Politicians

In the aftermath of the election Washington has settled into the same partisan gridlock that marked the last couple years.  The relative power of Democrats and Republicans has shifted, Democrats may push through some modest tax increases on rich folks but likely without really addressing the problem that created our fiscal imbalance.  

The fundemental  problem is defense spending.  The deficit exists because we spend enormous amounts of money on defense but are not willing to impose the taxes to pay for it.  

Republican's caused the problem with tax cuts coupled with increases in defense spending by both President Reagan and President Bush II.  The economy blowing up after the Bush II years was just the icing on the cake.  

But Democrats are afraid to confront the problem.  They fear being painted as weak on defense, so in fact often go meekly along with increases in defense spending.  

Democrats need to suck it up and start engaging the public on what purpose our massive defense spending serves.  We spend, per taxpayer, 4 to 5 times more on defense than taxpayers of any country other than Isreal and a couple of tiny belligerent dictatorships in the third world.  It is not because we live in a dangerous neighborhood (like Isreal), most of those we perceive to be potential enemies are half a world away.  Much of our defense spending is on maintaining the ability to fight two wars on the other side of the world.  Why do we need the capability to fight wars on the other side of the world?  To protect our economic interests around the world.  We aren't the worlds cop, we don't step in when genocide is going on, we step in when our economic interests are threatened.

Osama Bin Ladin didn't send terrorists to bomb a synagogue or a church, he went after the World Trade Center as his primary target, and the Pentagon as his secondary target.  The building that represents our economic interests around the world and the brain of the military that protects those interests.

I don't really have a problem with us having overwhelming military superiority, I do have a problem paying extra to protect private investments around the world, when the wealthy folk that own those investments and are making lots of money have been paying less and less to support our defense spending even as our spending increased.

The Democrats need to ask themselves, would the average voting taxpayer, if he/she understood who was financing our military and who was benefiting, really have a problem with someone standing up to talk about the folks that benefit from our military paying a fair share for that benefit?  

But this is an issue, like gay marriage, serious career politicians won't touch with a 10 foot pole.  Two many vested interests with the money and lawyers to bury their political careers.  

If we want to really solve the deficit the public needs to lead the politicians into serious discussion about what we want our Military to do and who should pay for it.