Are Ryan & The Republicans Really Courageous, Bold And Brave? Don't Be Ridiculous... And Look No Further Than Their Approach To The Pentagon

Buck & Schmuck

I don't know a single progressive who is satisfied with President Obama's budget in terms of the Military Industrial Complex. He's offered an overgrown hairy monster a light trim around the ears. The People's Budget, which was proposed by Raul Grijalva and Keith Ellison Friday, "responsibly ends our wars that are currently paid for by American taxpayer dollars we do not have."

We end these wars not simply to save massive amounts of money or because the majority of America is polling in favor to do so, but because these wars are making America less safe, are reducing America’s standing in the world, and are doing nothing to reduce America’s burgeoning energy security crisis. The CPC budget offers a real solution to these fiscal, diplomatic and energy crises, leaving America more secure, both here and abroad. The CPC budget also ensures that our country’s defense spending does not continue to contribute significantly to our current fiscal burden-- a trend we reverse by ending the wars and realigning conventional and strategic forces, resulting in $2.3 trillion worth of savings.

That's the progressive position. The goal is to

• End overseas contingency operations emergency supplementals starting in Fiscal Year 2013, providing $170 billion in FY2012 to fund redeployment, while saving more than $1.8 trillion from current law spending levels over ten years.

• Reduce baseline defense spending by reducing strategic capabilities, conventional forces, procurement, and R&D programs

But if the Congressional Progressive Caucus is grumbling that Obama is barely kicking the can down the road, Republicans, who have savaged Mr. Obama since before he was elected and prayed for his failure and Waterloo, are claiming he's being uncivil to Wall Street's poor retarded golden boy and Ryan himself was insisting the president wants to bankrupt the nation's security. So while serious analysts insist Obama isn't going nearly far enough in getting Pentagon spending under control, the GOP seeks to attack him for cutting the military budget (that they get so many kickbacks from) too much. Their spokesperson is dangerous and corrupt California retrobate Buck McKeon. McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee took more legalistic bribes from the defense industry than any other member of the House ($327,900 last year alone and over three-quarters of a million dollars since first being elected to the House). McKeon vows to fight like a mad dog to protect the special interests that have funded his sleazy political career from the $400 billion (over 12 years) that President Obama wants to cut.

The new GOP 2012 budget resolution, approved by Republicans on Friday, would cut just $178 billion over ten years, with $78 billion being used for deficit reduction and the rest being reinvested in the military.

McKeon said he is concerned with having a hollowed-out military such as the U.S. had at the start of World War II, when it scrambled to put poorly trained troops on the ground in North Africa and they became cannon fodder.

He said that he is not against any and all cuts.

“It’s ludicrous to think that out of a $550 billion budget that you can’t find some savings,” he said. “My concern is, when we’re fighting two wars and now engaged also in Libya, it’s not a great time to be cutting the military.”

He also criticized Obama's decisions to end the Marine Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program and the new presidential helicopter. Noting Obama had said he does not need a new helicopter, McKeon said “it is not about him, it is the presidency.”

Obama's measly $400 billion proposal doesn't eve get halfway to where the most minimal Pentagon cuts need to be. The People's Budget is looking for $2.3 trillion, about double what realistic analysts think should be trimmed.

It’s good that Obama proposed “to conduct a fundamental review of America’s missions, capabilities, and our role in a changing world.” But as Winslow Wheeler, Director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, points out:

“Unless this new review is a radical departure from previous ones, it will be a sham. If it is anything like the 2010 [Quadrennial Defense Review], it will not address the fundamental issues, and it will require none of the basic information needed to put together a competent budget and national strategy, nor a realistic plan the Pentagon can actually follow to reduce spending by $33.3 billion, or any other amount, per year.”

Of course, the Republicans are much worse, and for the most part-- except for some rumblings from Senator Tom Coburn and other members of the so-called Gang of Six-- the GOP is refusing to propose defense cuts. The Stimson Center’s Gordon Adams, who’s been critical of Obama’s modest plan for cuts, lambasts the Republicans for protecting the Pentagon. In a piece for The Hill, Adams and a colleague say:

“Last Tuesday, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) proposed a 2012 budget that caves to the Pentagon bureaucracy and spares the Department of Defense from fiscal discipline. Ryan’s spending plan mimics Defense Secretary Robert Gates,’ which is more about the pretense of savings than actual prudence. It calls for $178 billion in reductions over the next five years, but most of these reductions are illusory and none of them lower the budget. Instead, they merely slow the growth that the department has said it would prefer.”

The country cannot sustain military spending of more than $4 trillion over the next decade, which is what’s on the books. And, more important, it’s not the right thing to do. But these opening bids are pathetically less than what’s needed