As a Republican member of Congress whose mixed-in-every-way
Colorado district includes Aurora, suburbs of Denver, and a large
Air Force Base, Mike Coffman has long argued that the nation must
make cuts in the Defense Department budget.
This week, Coffman will propose legislation to
cut $500 billion from defense spending over the next decade
through a range of 15 measures that include reducing programs
“which do not contribute significantly to military capability,”
using local civilian contractors instead of military personnel for
“commercial-type activities at military bases,” lowering
bureaucratic head count through attrition, and reducing the number
of U.S. troops stationed in Europe.
This man is no RINO, and no naïf on defense issues. In addition
to having an American Conservative Union ranking of 95 in his four
years in Congress and serving on the House Armed Services
Committee, Coffman has served in both the U.S. Army and the Marine
Corps (in active duty and reserve capacities in each).
He volunteered to join the Army when he was 17 years old. And in
more recent years Coffman voluntarily gave up safe, comfortable
jobs in Colorado government, both while serving as a legislator and
later as State Treasurer, to serve in combat in Kuwait and later
helping to establish local governments in Iraq.
Today, Rep. Coffman believes — or at least hopes — that the
sequester gives him “leverage to try to get these reforms done.” He
doesn’t have illusions that his reforms will pass in the roughly
100 hours before the sequester hits, but rather that over coming
months he will be able to pass, whether as amendments or
stand-alone legislation, changes that replace across-the-board cuts
with specific cuts aimed to save nearly as much money.
Responding to an inquiry for this article, Coffman explained:
“The greatest threat to our national security is our unsustainable
debt. We need to reduce government spending in all areas to include
defense. The problem with sequestration is that it cuts Defense
across-the-board regardless whether a program is vital to our
national security or is something that should have been eliminated
a long time ago. As a Marine Corps combat veteran and a member of
the House Armed Services Committee, I know that we can take a
more pragmatic approach to cutting defense spending
without compromising national security.”
Coffman holds the least safe seat in Colorado following a 2012
redistricting that removed heavily Republican areas and added
Democratic-leaning areas to the state’s 6th Congressional District.
With the district housing Buckley Air Force Base and many defense
technology companies, it takes particular courage and subtlety for
Coffman to thread the sequester issue needle. The Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee is already running cynical web ads
— after all, the defense part of sequestration is the only part
they like — trying to tar Coffman with the sequester if it causes
layoffs in defense-related businesses in the district. They are
preparing to spend money on TV ads, aiming to beat Coffman in 2014
following the announcement that former Speaker of the State House
of Representatives, Andrew Romanoff, will run for the seat.
Coffman has been for cutting defense spending since before it
was cool, at least among Republicans. So while some may suggest
that his proposal is an attempt to appear moderate because of his
political situation, in fact Coffman has been singing this tune for
several years.
When I
interviewed Coffman on my radio show in December 2010, he
discussed how our “top-heavy” military sometimes acts “as if their
mission is supporting the Pentagon” rather than projecting American
power. He noted that the Navy “has more admirals than ships.” And,
then as now, he questioned the need for having so many U.S. troops
overseas as well as addressing the need to address defense pork.
He’s not the first to say it, but Coffman is absolutely right: “I
don’t see defense as a jobs program.” Great policy but dangerous
politics.
While Coffman has said that he opposes the sequester in its
current structure, he consistently
supports the “right sizing of our defense budget.” Too many
Republicans, however, at least until recent days, have been
sequester Chicken Littles, adding their voices to ridiculous claims
that the sequester must reduce national security, giving
credence to the Navy’s own version of the Washington Monument
strategy in which it is keeping an
aircraft carrier in port instead of sending it to the Persian
Gulf.
As
Byron York points out, the sequester’s cuts “are only to the
rate of growth for the defense budget in coming years. They are not
actual cuts that make spending decline…[D]efense spending will
increase in every year, even with sequestration cuts.”
There are Republicans, especially the most unkosher pork fiends
such as Senator Thad Cochran (MS), who refuse to cut defense
spending even for obviously wasteful projects because they fear it
will impact jobs in their states or districts. There may be a few
— Mitt Romney certainly pretended to be in this camp — who
believe that our defense needs require ever-growing military
spending, that there was almost no ability to save substantially
within current DoD expenditures. (The Weekly
Standard’s Bill
Kristol is apparently still in that camp, but then he was also
the one who said on Fox News Sunday during the fiscal
cliff debate that Republicans should “take Obama’s offer” to raise
taxes on upper-income Americans.)
And particularly during the initial onset of Republican
sequesterphobia, complaining about the pending cuts was a mindless
reaction from politicians who believe that being Republican means
never having to say you’re sorry for a dollar spent at the
Pentagon.
At least, even those members’ errors were not due to the cynical
assumption of American stupidity embodied by Democrats talking
about cutting air traffic controllers and meat inspectors, teachers
and policemen, federal prosecutors and disaster relief. In a
dubious pantheon of Democrat scare tactics, perhaps the most
cynical was Monday’s implication by Janet “Big Sis” Napolitano that
the sequester raises the
risk of a terrorist attack on American soil.
Republicans must be careful not to argue flatly against any cuts
to the defense budget. They must not make the same mistake that
Mitt Romney and others made during the 2012 elections when they
criticized President Obama for cutting Medicare, when the real
criticism should have been that cuts to Medicare were wasted in the
sink hole of Obamacare. In other words, Republicans must not box
themselves out of being able to support critically needed future
budget cuts by complaining when, even if by accident, Obama cuts
spending in some part of government.
There is no branch, department, or office of government that
could not continue to perform its duties, and perhaps perform them
better, with a small budget cut and the knowledge that unlike the
usual operation of government, a lack of results will not be
rewarded with more money.
The good news is that — unlike Democrats who want to replace
the sequester with tax hikes — Republicans generally have come
around to a sensible position, both in terms of policy and
politics, to allow the Pentagon to reallocate the cuts as long as
the total amount cut remains in place. They want to give
flexibility that the sequester-creating legislation doesn’t, but
don’t expect Democrats to go along with it because they, as usual,
would much prefer having the issue to having a solution, and they
don’t mind heavy cuts to defense spending.
Mike Coffman’s suggestion is better than giving the Pentagon
blanket flexibility in where they cut, given — as Jed
Babbin pointed out on these pages yesterday — that this is an
administration willing to sacrifice millions of DoD dollars at the
altar of the green goddess of the cult of climate change. And thus
Democrats will oppose Coffman as well.
When even Buck McKeon (R-CA), the chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, seems to have had that epiphany, getting
through the nearly impenetrable cloud of turf-protecting
power-hunger that characterizes committee chairmen of both parties
at all times, the message is clear.
When even the New York Times mentions the possibility
that Democrats have
misunderestimated Republicans’ resolve and perhaps the strength
of the Republican position, the message is even clearer.
The fact that Barack Obama and his henchmen are trying so hard
to scare the American people about the sequester means that even if
the “meat axe” approach to budget cutting is far from optimal, it
is today’s best realistic option for Republicans both in terms of
policy and politics.
Take the sequester, accept it (if not cheer it) as a good if
imperfect start, remind voters how little it actually cuts, and
then get on with the business of passing smart legislation and
showing that Obama and Senate Democrats are the real problem. If
John Boehner doesn’t have the courage to bring rationality to
cutting defense spending, let Mike Coffman take the lead.
