THE PLANK NOVEMBER 14, 2007
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
This weekend on Ezra Klein's blog, Nicholas Beaudrot posted a neat picture of a pie graph affixed to a car that showed relative levels of discretionary federal budget spending. The graph-mobile is effective at making its point: Pentagon spending dominates half the chart, dwarfing all other expenditures. It was designed by Caucus4Priorities, a nonprofit on a mission to cut about 15 percent of the Pentagon's budget--$60 billion--and invest it in social programs such as providing health care for children and rebuilding public schools. The campaign was founded by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, who's come up with some creative ideas to raise awareness: stacking Oreos to show how Congress divides the budget, handing out free ice cream in Iowa, and making the case for spending reduction on 'The Colbert Report.' The campaign, which endorsed John Edwards on Friday (despite Biden and Richardson's superior scores on the group's issue scorecard) is hoping to turn out the 10,000 supporters who've signed a pledge to support a candidate with their priorities in the democratic caucus. Whether or not they'll actually be able to get those 10,000 supporters to the caucus for Edwards is definitely suspect, but in a state with roughly 124,000 Democratic caucus-goers, any significant fraction would be a much-needed boost. It's interesting to watch how the Democrats are negotiating the military overspending issue. In 2000, Al Gore was in favor of more military spending than Bush, and John Kerry, though never entirely precise on the figures, supported military expansions that were likely to keep the defense budget at levels as high as they were under W., if not higher. Evidence of antiquated weapons programs and rampant mismanagement in Iraq are unlikely to move the needle; the fear of being painted by Republicans as an effete, weak-on-defense peacenik isn't going to go anywhere. At the moment, none of the top-tier candidates are proposing any significant cuts to military spending. In fact, most are proposing expansions to the military, which will of course create new expenses, and receiving donations from defense contractors. The questionnaire Edwards filled out for the group is telling: he left over half the answers blank, leaving one to wonder how much the "Iowans for Sensible Priorities" are going to be able to get serious treatment on the issue.
--Marin Cogan
7 comments
Military spending is a lot like drug laws. It's too easy to be called weak by one's opponent, so things move in only one direction-- military spending goes up, sentences get longer-- even though any reasonable person can tell things have gone way too far.
- ejbenjamin
November 14, 2007 at 2:57pm
$60 BILLION...
- dbhuff
November 14, 2007 at 3:20pm
There was one good thing about Rummy, he did try to cancel programs in the defense budget that no longer made sense, but ran into opposition that eventually beat him. Think Osprey or Crusader. Fighting set piece battles isn't where we are going to be struggling in 4th gen warfare...
- dbhuff
November 14, 2007 at 3:25pm
D'oh! Thanks, huff.
- Marin Cogan
November 14, 2007 at 3:42pm
You can't really develop a sensible position on military spending until you develop an overall foreign policy strategy. Whether there is too much or too little spending depends on what you want or need to do. Calling for arbitrary cuts in defense spending without having an idea of what the country's role in the worl d will be is pointless. IMO, the Democrats have never shown a willingness to actually discuss what our role should be, as if Iraq is the only foreign policy issue we have. Foreign policy has to reflect capabilities and capabilities have to reflect foreign policy goals.
Now, I'm not naive enough to think that's how defense spending is actually set. It's at least as much about politics and pork as it is about national security. Nevertheless, while it's easy for Jerry Cohen to throw out a number like $60 billion and get oohs and ahs, it's meaningless without some idea of what you will actually be cutting and how it will affect the ability to carry out foreign policy goals. What those goals are going to be is something the Democrats need to be discussing.
- Mschneider
November 14, 2007 at 3:58pm
Hasn't it often been said that one of the reasons we failed in Iraq was that we didn't have enough troops, and that Bush's tax cuts made it impossible to have the size of army that would have been necessary to successfully occupy the country? I always thought that was the reason the Democratic candidates said we needed to spend more money on the military.
- Gabbage
November 14, 2007 at 4:14pm
What schneider and gabbage said. The lion's share of the Pentagon budget foes to personnel, and it's hard to argue that we have too many active-duty soldiers.
If you want to cut DoD personnel spending by rolling back overseas bases, then that has to be part of a much larger and more complicated discussion about geostrategy, alliance structures, shifting patterns of collective security and threats to same in the Far East, South Asia, SW Asia, Eastern Europe etc etc etc.
Raising the issue of military spending while running away from the much more urgent and important root issue of theater-by-theater _strategy_ is a sure way to perpetuate our party's well-earned image of deep unseriousness when it comes to national security issues.
- teplukhin2you
November 15, 2007 at 1:27pm