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The administration
recently released its 2013 budget proposal, and conservatives are correctly
alarmed that it calls for unprecedented spending and continued annual
deficits exceeding $1 trillion. But the same conservatives complain that the
budget does not devote enough funds to overseas adventurism.
I continue to be dismayed
that in spite of our economic problems, most of those who call themselves
fiscal conservatives refuse to consider any reductions in military spending.
Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute very aptly
addresses this in his recent article for the American Conservative entitled
“Attack of the Pork Hawks”. He points out that conservatives are
using a tired liberal argument to defend the bloated military budget: namely,
that more spending equals better results. The
federal education morass is merely one example that clearly disproves this.
The facts are that the
President’s budget calls for an 18% increase versus the previously
planned 20% increase. This is not a cut, yet Pentagon hawks continue to issue
dire warnings that this “draconian” decrease in proposed future
spending will seriously threaten our national security. In truth, the
majority of DOD spending goes to protect other nations, including prosperous
allies like Europe and Japan and South Korea – nations that could and
should take more responsibility for their own defense.
Is there any amount of
money that would satisfy the hawks and the neoconservatives? Even adjusted
for inflation,
military spending is 17% higher now than when Obama took office. Even the
worst case scenarios of Obama’s “cuts”, adjusted for
inflation, still put outlays at 2007 levels, which are 40% higher than a
decade ago. Our total spending on overseas adventurism and nation building
equals more than the next 13 highest spending countries in the world
combined. Even if we were to slash our military budget in half, we would
still be the world’s dominant military power, by far.
In reality, the military
industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about has become every
bit the voracious monolith he feared. It wastes as much as any other arm of
government, if not more, because it knows it can depend on unlimited blank
checks from a terrified Congress.
Mr. Bandow
concludes that America is more secure today than at any point since before
WWII, and that military outlays should be reduced accordingly. We should, Mr.
Bandow argues,
“stop garrisoning the globe, subsidizing rich friends, and
reconstructing poor enemies. Instead, it’s about time Washington
focused on defending American and its people.”
I couldn’t agree
more. Wasting money on overseas adventurism and nation building threatens our
national security by massively contributing to our debt. Both welfare and
warfare spending are tipping our economy into a serious currency and debt
crisis. We can afford no sacred cows in our budget. One only has to look to
the violence and civil unrest in Greece and ask – is that the sort of
security we envision for our nation’s future?
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