"We must be willing to pull the plug beforesinking more dollars into weapons that do not provide what our warriorsneed."
Now name the leader who said this:
"(W)e cannot track $2.3 trillion in (Pentagonspending) ... We maintain 20 to 25 percent more base infrastructure than weneed to support our forces, at an annual waste to taxpayers of some $3 billionto $4 billion ... There are those who will oppose every effort to savetaxpayers' money ... Well, fine, if there's to be a struggle, so be it."
I'm willing to bet many self-described"conservatives" guessed Ralph Nader and Dennis Kucinich. I would makethat wager based on the enraged response to my recent column about governmentdata showing that our waste-ridden, $600-billion-a-year defense budget willcost about seven times more than the health care legislation currently beforeCongress.
In e-mails, letters and website comments,right-wingers didn't vent anger at Pentagon profligacy, but at the criticism ofPentagon profligacyas if brazenly throwing away billions on outdated weaponssystems and obsolete military programs is now a "conservative" value.Notably, the vitriol didn't include contrary numbers disproving the figures Ireferenced (none exists)the responses just used Fox News-ish slogans like “thecost of freedom” to deride all criticism of Pentagon spending as unpatrioticultraliberalism.
Of course, if that's true, then Stephen Colbert'srefrain that "reality has a well-known liberal bias" is now less alaugh line than a devastatingly accurate commentary on the deranged terms of America'spolitical discourse. I say that because here are some objective, nonpartisan,non-ideological facts:
- The2010 Pentagon budget means "every man, woman and child in the United Stateswill spend more than $2,700 on (defense) programs and agencies next year,"reports the Cato Institute. "By way of comparison, the average Japanesespends less than $330; the average German about $520; China's percapita spending is less than $100."
- "(The Pentagon budget) dwarfs the combined defense budgets of U.S. allies and potential U.S. enemiesalike," reports Hearst Newspapers.
- "President (Obama) is on track to spend more on defense, in real dollars,than any other president has in one term of office since World War II,"reports National Journal's Government Executive magazine.
- In2000, the Pentagon admitted it has lostyes, lost$2.3 trillion. In 2003, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that asubsequent Department of Defense study said it was only $1 trillion. To putsuch numbers in perspective, contemplate what those sums could finance. $1trillion, for instance, could pay the total cost of universal health care forthe long haul. $2.3 trillion would cover universal health care plus the bankbailout plus the stimulus package.
Obviouslyobviously!these points are no cause foralarm and certainly no cause for defense spending reductions, right? All theymust prove is that the archconservative Cato Institute, William RandolphHearst's newspaper chain, NationalJournal employees and Pentagon officials are secretly America-hatingliberals. Andobviously!so are two of the most aggressive neoconservativehawks ever to hold government office, Sen. John McCain and Defense SecretaryDonald Rumsfeld. After all, they’re the ones who issued those scathingstatements about wasteful defense spending in the pop quiz above. That meansthey’re actually terrorist-appeasing lefties, right?
Really, how could anyone other than traitorouscommunists see the data and then consider backing the mildest Pentagon spendingcuts? I mean, come onin a country whose paranoid conservative movement nowmakes a dead-serious ideology out of Stephen Colbert wisecracks, how dare anyred-blooded American even think of pondering basic budgetary facts?
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