Credit where credit is due:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=12741213

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in a recent pre-emptive move, proposed $78 billion in spending cuts and an additional $100 billion in cost-saving moves. While that amounts to $13 billion less than the Pentagon wanted to spend in the coming year, it still stands as 3 percent growth after inflation is taken into account.

That's why tea party groups say if the government is going to cut spending, the military's budget needs to be part of the mix.

"The widely held sentiment among Tea Party Patriot members is that every item in the budget, including military spending and foreign aid, must be on the table," said Mark Meckler, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. "It is time to get serious about preserving the country for our posterity. The mentality that certain programs are 'off the table' must be taken off the table."
______________________

I'll say this: this shows that they may well really mean what they said about cutting the budget. Willingness to touch *this* sacred cow is not *all* of what would seriously be required but it is a start. And it certainly is a difference from previous Republican ideas of "fiscal conservatism" that entirely exempted the military from any such things as this.

Comments

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

I think it is pretty obvious that the rank and file Tea Party member really is serious about cutting the size of the government and how much it spends. Sure they may not all realize the numbers and therefore say things like "Don't cut my social security" but their goals are pure.

Whether this applies to the political leadership who has pandered to the Tea Parties in an effort to gain their votes of course is an entirely separate issue.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

See, most of the previous times GOP politicians have been elected on "balance the budget rhetoric" they've gutted the arts and sciences but left the big feeding troughs, so to speak, intact. If they go through with this this would actually be a difference between the Tea Party and say, Newt Gingrich's GOP. In the favor of the Tea Party.

[heirtoruin.livejournal.com]

I'd be fine with eliminating social security. I'd love to invest the $300 withdrawn from my paycheck each month in the private sector.

[heirtoruin.livejournal.com]

Or at the very least, make it optional.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

but...but....what about all teh gays??

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Teh fact that it angers you is most definitely not my problem.

And I seriously doubt you are harming any puppies.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Pics or it didn't happen.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

See, now you seem too eager to prove that you did it. Ergo that couldn't be you.

Also: I doubt you have teh large enough supply of puppies.
Also also: way too easy for me to find that same image on googleimages, so teh certainty I have that its not you is increased

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

(http://senorgif.memebase.com/2011/01/15/funny-gifs-gtfo-dog-itz-caturday/)
see more Gifs (http://senorgif.memebase.com)

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

My malfunction is preventing me from following teh proper protocol. Step one: repair myself (aka have my morning coffee)

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Personally, I prefer tea.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

"Teh gays" is a technical term. It refers to a group closely related to teh gaiz and dem tharr homos, which are terrorist anti-heterosexual agenda-wielding pervert child molesters with flaming sexual diseases they want to pass on to you through knives.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

OK, wow, I thought I was just being absurd. That's just... wow.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

When they were building the Reagan Library, workmen were not allowed on site a couple times due to homosexual activists with urine filled balloons (supposedly......urine filled I mean, that they were there with filled balloons, fact, whether they actually threw them or not, and what was in them; my son (who was working one the AC installation) did not have to be told twice to leave)
Stuff like that does happen (or did, I haven't heard of it from cop friends in a while). Panookah may be correct in that it was a 90s thing.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

[heirtoruin.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it's serious. HUD, DOEducation, the IRS, Fannie/Freddie, farm subsidies...all should be completely gutted.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

While I do applaud the sentiment, it's odd to see foreign aid mentioned in this context along side the military budget.

Firstly, foreign aid is rarely 'off the table'. It's an easy target. It's not the 'sacred cow' that military spending is, and acting as if it were, or at least grouping it with the other, seems odd.

Secondly, it's a tiny part of the budget (between 1 and 2 percent, depending on which year you draw your number from, and that includes Military and civilian aid combined)

I suspect the reason for that phrasing is to 'sugar the pill'... i.e. to add a mention of something about which his constituency agrees, so as to soften the impact of the assertion about Military spending, which some of his constituents might take issue.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

The U.S. spent 10s of billions on foreign military aid last year. It all adds up.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Do you have a source for those numbers? I don't have any more recent than 2007, but in 2006 and 2007, the entire foreign aid budget, both military and civilian, to all nations from the U.S. was 18 (2006) and 17.7 billion (2007), so use of the plural on "10's of billions on foreign military aid" is misleading.

If that amount shot up radically after 2007 till the present, I presume it is Iraq and Afghanistan related.. i.e. the costs of prosecuting the 'war on terror.' Calling such expenses "foreign aid" seems just a little bit Orwellian.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I didn't have a precise figure I only knew it was somewhere between 19.5 and several billion more, so 10's of billions seemed the correct phrase. You can find some figures here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_United_States#Military which may or may not include any number of any countries receiving lots of smaller amounts.

But let us agree it's roughly 20 billion and yes, a goodly proportion of that goes to the Afghanistan and Iraq.

I'm really not sure how it is Orwellian to describe money sent to foreign countries, which they spend on their military, as "foreign military aid".

I mean, if you want to argue that the only reason the money is being sent is because they are doing the U.S.'s dirty work for them (i.e. "the war on terror"), well yes, that is normally exactly why foreign military aid is sent. It's not normally given merely to be charitable. It's still being paid to fund foreign militaries, nonetheless.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> I'm really not sure how it is Orwellian to describe money sent
> to foreign countries, which they spend on their military, as
> "foreign military aid".

To me it seems like yet another euphemistic way to obscure the costs of war.

The appropriateness of the designation in any given case depends on the details of what money is spent how. Money we give to Iraq that it uses to train new security troops, yeah, I'd count that as foreign military aid.

But, money used to directly pay those troops patrolling on the streets, or to administer the same... that's not "Aid", that's part of the cost of occupation.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

But that doesn't make sense either.

By paying troops to patrol the streets of their own country, that comes under the cost of occupation?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That would be my thinking, yes. Albeit a lot of them are knee-jerk Jingoists who don't stop to actually analyze the Defense Budget as it actually is. It's more the Sacred Pork Barrel than something logical and reasonable.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

You use jingoist like it's a pejorative. :P

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

Why is it that only in government is a 3% increase viewed as a spending cut?

Anyway, how much more could we cut from the entier federal budget if we got rid of waste and reduncancy?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

So then we'd be Haiti?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

depends. How much of Head Start, Medicare, the NEA, and SCHIP is waste?

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

A lot. Havig worked with Head Start programs (I worked at a community action agency) I've seen how much is wasted in the program and in the running of the program.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

yeah, I figured you'd say something like that.

There's far less waste than you think in social programs, especially compared to the billions wasted on military boondoggles.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

NEA is national endowment for the arts right?

Some people might argue that 100% is a waste, and I would be tempted to, but it's not worth it, since it's not (comparatively) that much money, we could never come to a compromise, and I should be doing something constructive...so just consider this as drive by snark :D

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Not as much as you think.

The problem us one man's waste and redundancy is another's critical program.

Even if you just restricted it to trying to eliminate fraud you'll find it largely impossible because in a heavily bureaucratic institution there are always so many conflicting rules that it is usually impossible to even determine what is and what is not fraud and it is largely a judgement call which category any given expense falls into.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

That's everywhere. If you get paid the same this year as last, that is a paycut due to inflation.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

I agree that it actually is a de facto pay cut, but people don't, in my experience, actually tend to use language that way. Usually when we say that we got, say, a 3% pay cut, the assumption is that the number of dollars received compared to prior to the cut has decreased, not the buying power of the check.

True That!

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Yeah and just think of us who had an actual pay cut. But grateful to still be working, altho one more pay cut and I'm going on SS)

Re: True That!

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

I've had significant pay cuts in the past. You live through them.

Re: True That!

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Yes you do. I have been on half salary from what I was making 2 years ago, but I am in a position that I have managed my finances for that eventuality 5 years ago, since it's about what I'd get if I take SS next month (when I'm 65). My real complaint is that I still have to spend all those hours not making money :D

On the subject of cutting waste....

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

"Cut out the fat!" or "Cut waste" is just the lie people tell themselves when they a) don't want to admit that saving money will require difficult choices about competing priorities, or b) they want to dismiss other people's priorities (by calling them 'waste').

But David Mitchell says it better than I can...





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zoz5EuIF_y8

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Depends on what you call waste and redundancy. Much of the Defense Budget is to put it bluntly a sacred pork barrel that goes to ensuring Congressmen are re-elected as opposed to what the US reasonably needs. This is partially why we can't design some of the new equipment.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Since Robert Gates isn't a Tea Party member, I'm going to hold out until the Militant Wing of the Republican actually votes to cut defense spending to give them any credit.

I'm guessing that Michelle Bachman's response to the SOTU won't have anything about cutting Defense.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

My post was related more to some of them having the guts to outright admit that simply gutting the arts to bugdust won't resolve the budget problem. *Those* Tea Partiers I can respect.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit shocked that tea partiers can acknowledge that point so yes, I can respect that.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Nah, I don't ever see it happening. If Tea Partiers think the military budget is going to get cut, they've got another think coming.