-
John Kerry, Secretary of Gaffes
April 25, 2013 | 9 comments
-
Rand Paul and Marco Rubio at CPAC
March 14, 2013 | 0 comments
-
SEQUESTER: The Dumbest Weight-Loss Plan Ever
March 1, 2013 | 0 comments
-
Israel’s Hard-Right Turn That Wasn’t
January 22, 2013 | 1 comment
-
Deep Space Nine, Twenty Years Later
January 3, 2013 | 23 comments
The Spectacle Blog
At Foreign Policy, Josh Rogin reports:
Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the incoming chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, isn’t wasting any time in pressing for deep cuts to the State Department and U.S. foreign operations around the world.
Ros-Lehtinen, in a statement today laying out her agenda, also criticized the Obama administration’s decision to join the U.N. Human Rights Council, called for the government to use its contributions to international organizations as leverage to force changes at the United Nations, and advocated for stronger action against “rogue states.”
Her primary mission, though? Finding savings in the budgets that her committee will be authorizing.
“In November, the voters made it clear that if we don’t take the correct approach to policy by keeping our economy foremost in our decisions, they’re going to ship us all out,” she said. “Republicans got the message and are committed to making ‘the people’s House’ work for the people again. As Chairman of this Committee, I will work to restore fiscal discipline to foreign affairs, reform troubled programs and organizations, exercise vigorous oversight to identify waste, fraud, and abuse, and counter the threats posed to our nation by rogue states and violent extremists.”
Ros-Lehtinen doesn’t actually dole out the funds for the State Department and the foreign operations budgets. That’s the job of the House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops subcommittee. But as we’ve reported, the likely incoming chairwoman of that panel, Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) is of a similar mind as Ros-Lehtinen.
Contrast that with this Defense News item:
The House Republican Conference today ratified U.S. Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif., as the next chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services. McKeon, currently the committee’s ranking member, will assume the chairmanship when the 112th Congress convenes in January.
In public statements in recent weeks, McKeon has vowed to fight attempts to cut U.S. military spending.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the White House has promised to swell the Pentagon budget by 1 percent over five years, but that 2 percent to 3 percent over that span is needed to build the needed force.
At a November forum, McKeon said he agreed.
That level of yearly “growth in the department’s top line is insufficient to address the future capabilities required by our military,” he said at the forum. “One percent real growth in the defense budget over the next five years is a net cut for investment and procurement accounts.”
The alluded-to forum was held by the Foreign Policy Initiative, which has joined the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation in pushback against calls for defense cuts. A summary, transcript, and video of the McKeon appearance is here.
View all comments (25) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by John Tabin
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/12/09/incoming-gop-house-leaders-eye
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- The Great Train Robbery
- Wincing at Cumberbatch
- The End of the Castros?
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
H/T to National Review Online
ADVERTISEMENT
Al Adab| 12.9.10 @ 5:45PM
State is a good place to start. Might I suggest they include EPA, DOE (both) OSHA and those new IRS folks as well?
C Bowen| 12.9.10 @ 6:11PM
Ros-Lehtinen just voted for the DREAM Act; how much longer must we suffer these liberal Republicans?
William R| 12.9.10 @ 7:12PM
Same old crap from the GOP. They'll never learn. We can't even begin to attack the deficit unless we make large cuts in the defense budget. Just shows the hideous NeoCons hoodwinked the tea party about being serious about downsizing government.
Al Adab| 12.9.10 @ 7:57PM
William:
It's the entitlements. Defense is a Constitutionally mandated function of the Federal Government. It would be nice if they took that seriously though. Redistribution wi;; break us all if allowed to proceed. You and your ilk make the survival of Liberty problematic.
David W| 12.9.10 @ 10:58PM
Good luck beating a dead horse. You'll never convince progressives that the government is to provide for mutual defense (as well as stable currency, assuring equal treatment under the law and equal opportunities for success) and really not much else.
victor| 12.10.10 @ 1:59AM
And liberaltarians as well.
Notice how they share their distate and distrust of the military with the liberals?
How come they don't attack the other parts of the Federal Budget that should be cut because they are not Constitutionally mandated. eh?
Welfare, medicare, medicaid, SCHIP accounts for nearly 50% of the budget, yet these liberals and fellow travelers insist that only Defense be cut.
Clint| 12.10.10 @ 6:03AM
Dr. Ron Paul:
"With regard to entitlements, the 2010 Social Security and Medicare Trustees report tells it all. It paints a stark picture of two entitlement programs that cannot be sustained under even the rosiest scenarios of economic growth. No one, regardless of political stripe, can deny the fundamental problem of unfunded future liabilities in both programs.
We should understand that Social Security was intended primarily to prevent old widows from becoming destitute. Life expectancy in 1935 was only about 65, when there were several workers for each Social Security recipient. The program was never intended to be a general transfer payment from young workers to older retirees, regardless of those retirees’ financial need. Yet today Social Security faces an unfunded liability of approximately $18 trillion. "
William R| 12.9.10 @ 7:24PM
23 Top Conservative Leaders Urge GOP Leadership To Pursue Defense Budget Cuts
http://www.atr.org/files/files/11302010lt_Defense Spending wSigns.pdf
Clint| 12.9.10 @ 10:33PM
" Senator-elect Rand Paul of Kentucky was the latest, declaring on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that military spending should not be exempt from the electorate’s clear
desire to reduce the massive federal deficit.
His comments follow similar musings by leading fiscal hawks Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a presumptive contender for the GOP nomination in 2012. Others who agree that military spending shouldn’t get a free pass as we search for savings include Sen. Johnny Isakson, Sen. Bob Corker, Sen.-elect Pat Toomey—the list goes on."
Ronald Reagan On Defense Waste:
" During my 1980 campaign, I called federal waste and fraud a national scandal. We knew we could never rebuild America's strength without first controlling the exploding cost of defense programs, and we're doing it. When we took office in 1981, costs had been escalating at an annual rate of 14 percent. Then we began our reforms. And in the last two years, cost increases have fallen to less than 1 percent. We've made huge savings. Each F-18 fighter costs nearly $4 million less today than in 1981. One of our air-to-air missiles costs barely half as much.
Getting control of the defense bureaucracy is no small task. Each year the Defense Department signs hundreds of thousands of contracts. So yes, a horror story will sometimes turn up despite our best efforts. That's why we appointed the first Inspector General in the history of the Defense Department. And virtually every case of fraud or abuse has been uncovered by our Defense Department, our Inspector General. Secretary Weinberger should be praised, not pilloried, for cleaning the skeletons out of the closet. As for those few who have cheated taxpayers or have swindled our Armed Forces with faulty equipment, they are thieves stealing from the arsenal of democracy, and they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
victor| 12.10.10 @ 1:53AM
Reagan would never sign on to the following:
http://www.house.gov/frank/doc.....letter.pdf
with 3/4 of the Progressive Caucus (Democrat Socialists of America) on this list and one lone republican loon.
Clint| 12.10.10 @ 4:55AM
Ronald Reagan Agreed With Air Force Veteran Dr. Ron Paul:
Republican Texas Congressman Dr.Ron Paul:
"Many of us can agree on one thing, however. Our military spending in general has grown way out of control. This is largely because fiscal accountability in military budgeting is seen, by many, as weak on defense.
This is absolutely wrong and a dangerous way to think.
It is certainly possible for the military to waste money, or to spend money counter-productively, and indeed it has. But out of political correctness, the military has been getting blank checks from the administrations and Congress for far too long.
It is important to defend our soil, but let us defend our own soil instead of defending Europe's soil.
Our willingness to defend Europe enables their lavish social spending at our expense, while they criticize our model of capitalism. It is time they allocated the money for their own defense. The same goes for Korea, Japan and other countries like Egypt and Israel.
It is also important that while our troops are in combat, our soldiers have what they need to do the best they can, even if we disagree with why they are there. It is an embarrassment that some soldiers and families have had to buy body armor at their own expense when billions are awarded to politically well-connected defense contractors for weapon systems that don't work, are over-budget, past deadline. This is the kind of waste that needs to end. I firmly believe that there is enough waste in the military budget that we can both save money overall and at the same time be safer."
victor| 12.10.10 @ 1:46PM
clin(timmy*);
"Ronald Reagan Agreed With Air Force Veteran Dr. Ron Paul"
When did he say that and would he agree with RonPaul signing on with 56 liberal progressive socialists?
William R| 12.10.10 @ 10:04AM
It is long past time to tell the military welfare pimps to drop dead.
Margie| 12.9.10 @ 9:09PM
I must say, as always, that what some call conservative is really Libertarian. Libertarians would have us basically unarmed.. or perhaps just Fortress America, all isolated to our own little huddled world, unless we are attacked on our own soil and then we fight on our own soil.. at least that is what we hear them say.
It is interesting is it not, that they seem to almost with a hovering greedy covetousness have a haughty desire to want to and actually push for our military to be defunded. Just look at Ron Paul signing on with 54 other Leftist Socialists to do same.
Now you have these other signatories above, in William R.'s link. Interesting that most are Libertarians, once again.
I say, beware of them.
Clint| 12.10.10 @ 5:01AM
Ronald Reagan:
"Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defense. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country."
Have you considered| 12.10.10 @ 8:58AM
Most people do not know that the constitution Limits the appropriations for an army to 2 years at Art 1, Sec 8, Item 12: "" To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;"" There was much discussion in the Federalist Papers of the dangers to the citizenry (and the treasury) of a standing army, as history has shown that other governments and monarchies have used standing armies as a weapon of tyranny, and were a constant drain upon the treasury. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist #26 stated the reasoning of the limitation thus: " The legislature of the United States will be OBLIGED (emphasis in original) by this provision, once at least in every two years, to deliberate upon the propriety of keeping a military force on foot; to come to a new resolution on this point; and to declare their sense of the matter, by formal vote in the face of their constituents. " Hamilton also argued that the citizenry would "jealousy guard" their liberties, and they would vote out of power those representatives that created a military so powerful as to threaten the peoples of the United States. That said, the global conditions today seem to evidence the need for a standing army, but you may find this instructive as to the Libertarian posture on the matter of defense.
William R| 12.10.10 @ 10:05AM
The disgusting treasonous skank returns.
victor| 12.10.10 @ 1:53PM
Ah yes, the fruits of libertarianism in full bloom:
The Freedom to call women foul and vile names.
Another trait that you and liberals hold dear.
Once heard a ACLU lawyer talking about how great it was for high schoolers to use the "F" word as if that was the true meaning of the First Amendment.
Must be liberating to think the same way, eh?
William R| 12.10.10 @ 10:09AM
Ronald Reagan on Ron Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXW1hb-JQg
victor| 12.10.10 @ 1:50PM
That was when? from the 80's?
What would Reagan say about Pope Ron Paul I signing on with 56 Progressively Socialist Democrats?
victor| 12.10.10 @ 1:50PM
That was when? from the 80's?
What would Reagan say about Pope Ron Paul I signing on with 56 Progressively Socialist Democrats?
Nite| 12.10.10 @ 12:21AM
I would say the last place to cut is the Military. We are fighting two wars and our soldiers need top of the line equipment and support. Cut State, the UN, foreign aid, EPA, IRS, Dept of Education, the New Healthcare bill, and all of the governmental agencies under the so called Czars. In fact, get rid of the unconfirmed and highly pad Czars, the majority of which averages $180,000 to $200,000 per year plus benefits. Cut the Presidential and Congressional budgets. Place Congress on the same retirement system as other federal workers. Congress has a special retirement system and health benefits. These are just a few ideas that might make some improvement. Dems have spent money like a drunken sailor for the past two years.
JimmyT| 12.10.10 @ 11:03AM
You can cut defense spending simply by cutting waste and fraud. You don't have to cut funds for the defense of the country. When Boeing is granted $110M to build a specific new aircraft and the Defense Dept. approves another $200M for "cost overruns", that's waste and fraud. Nite--As Krauthammer says,"to equate congress's spending to that of a drunken sailor is to insult the sailor. At least the sailor is spending his own money".
handbagboots | 12.11.10 @ 12:56AM
Thanks for sharing your article. I really enjoyed it.