One of my long-standing suspicions about Barack Obama has been
that he thinks our spending on defense is excessive, and could be
restrained so that we'd have more money to spend domestic social
programs. Of course, a lot of Democrats make this argument
explicitly regarding Iraq, but with Obama, it seems more
sweeping.
Yesterday, I was reading about Obama's losing primary race
against Rep. Bobby Rush, and I came across another indication that
this is the case. A March 12, 2000 Chicago
Tribune account of a debate featuring Rush, Obama, and
fellow state senator Donne Trotter, reported on the following
telling exchange:
Obama and Trotter also criticized Congress for
extravagant defense spending, to which Rush responded, "I have
never voted for a defense budget."
One wonders what Obama must have said to Rush that would have
prompted such an absurd declaration. Keep in mind that Obama was
making these criticisms prior to Iraq and Afghanistan, prior to to
the post 9/11 defense buildup, and after a decade long "peace
dividend" that had gutted the military. Unfortunately, it may be
impossible to know the full context of the exchange, because it
doesn't appear that a record of the debate exists. I called the
League of Women Voters, which sponsored the debate, and they said
they don't keep any transcripts or tapes, and as far as I can tell
the debate wasn't broadcast.
Either way, the Tribune account is
consistent with other statements Obama has made in the recent past
regarding defense spending. In a December 2003 interview he gave while
seeking the endorsement of the staunch liberal group IVI-IPO, he
was asked, "Do you agree with the current proposed level of funding
for the military? If you agree, explain. If you disagree, how would
you distribute the funds?"
Here was Obama's response:
Spending levels are too high because the Bush
Administration has over-extended our military commitments and its
unilateralist policies have cost us the assistance of numerous
allies who could help share the burden. Today, for instance, we
have embarked on an ill conceived, poorly executed occupation of
Iraq, for which the Administration recently requested and received
$87 billion in funding. At the same time, we continue to post
troops in Afghanistan and even in Kosovo. The over-extension of our
military is obvious when the majority of troops on duty in Iraq
consist of reserves and our national guard. A foreign policy that
sought better collaboration with our allies -- and emphasized
diplomacy over military might -- would enable us to reduce our
military budget, while focusing it more effectively on the fight
against international terror. Ultimately, we should invest more in
homeland security protection, jobs, education, and health care to
achieve the kind of security all Americans deserve.
It clearly sounds here as if his critique of defense spending is
broader than Iraq. It isn't merely a matter of reallocating our
resources from Iraq to the broader War on Terror, but the ultimate
goal is to reduce military spending
overall
to focus on his domestic priorities
During his current campaign, he has tried to have it both ways.
Here's how
I reported things from an Obama town hall meeting I attended in
New Hampshire in May of last year:
Obama has called for increasing the size of the
military and moving against terrorist groups when the subject
specifically comes up, or when he is addressing a more general
audience, but when speaking to a partisan crowd, he strikes a
different balance.
Before the Rye, New Hampshire town hall meeting I attended, a
woman handed out cookies decorated with a pie chart representing
the size of the Pentagon budget, suggesting that money wasted on
outdated weapons could be diverted to health care and education.
(She was with the group PrioritiesNH, which claims to be
nonpartisan, but is run by liberal activist Ben Cohen, co-founder
of ice cream company Ben and Jerry's.)
During the question and answer session, Obama was asked about
withdrawing all of our troops based throughout the world.
Responding, he held up the cookie and noted the disproportionate
amount of money America spends on defense relative to the rest of
the world. "We spend more money on defense than the next 30 nations
combined, "he stressed. "Combined." Obama acknowledged that "we
have very real enemies out there, "but argued that we could be
spending money more wisely, and lamented the cost of the Iraq war.
Instead of proposing that money saved by pulling out from Iraq be
spent to improve national security in other ways, he said we could
use the money for early child education, or to expand access to
health care. This was quite a different tone from the major foreign
policy address he gave a few weeks earlier. In that speech (which
got good reviews from neoconservative Robert Kagan), he called for
adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.
The idea that we should be reducing our military expenditures to
help fund domestic social programs is popular within the
progressive circles that Obama has emerged from, and if he shares
that view, it would be nice for him to be clear about it so that he
and John McCain can have an honest debate about the proper role of
government. But as it stands now, it's hard to accept as sincere
his commitment to strengthening the military when there's a lot to
suggest that he really wants to downsize it.
At the end of the day, this gets to the heart of the problem
with Obama. If you want to find out where McCain stands on a given
issue, you can go back decades, look at floor speeches, interviews,
debates, and votes, to get an idea of whether or not you're
comfortable with him on that issue. But with Obama, if we don't
want to accept uncritically what he is currently saying, all we
have to go on to assess his record are scraps of information that
provide us with clues, but no firm answers.
topics:
Foreign Policy, Education, Health Care, John McCain, Barack Obama, Military, Iraq, NATO
