No, not the whole conservative movement. Conservative blogs and editorial pages frequently took the president and congressional GOP to task for their spendthrift ways. I’ve been doing so for at least three years. –Dan]

Agreed, but to be even more accurate, we must remember that a great majority of congressional Republicans opposed much of the expansion of government and much of it passed only because of Democrat + a minority of Republican support.

You want to know where the GOP screwed up most over the past 8 years? Mostly with RINO’s like Arlen Specter, Olympia Snowe, et al.

Regards,
Peter H.

ctrl + f “mccain” not found.

The Dems will still build equipment because Obama’s UNIONS will protect those jobs and therefore the contracts associated with them. I suspect it will be the soldier’s benefits and salaries that will be the target of cuts.

My son is in Iraq on his 4th tour and relates stories of impending doom felt by those that have chosen the military as a career.

Our nations security depends on experienced military personnel and retention of quality troops which is NOT a priority of the Dems. Recall they attacked McCain for tying length of service to post service benefits.

Jeb n Tex

Here’s one example.

Basically put, you would be cutting tens of billions of dollars in business revenue and hundreds of thousands of jobs that pay, on average, better than most other jobs.

And that’s in just one state.

Why does Obama want to cut

ILC- What would you suggest we do to… balance the budget?

Ignore both defense and entitlements for the moment (though yes, I would certainly reform/cut entitlements)… Just look at non-defense, discretionary spending… Bush has been the biggest spender in modern history, even bigger than Lyndon Johnson. (7.1% real annual growth in non-defense discretionary spending in his first term, vs. Johnson’s 3.9%.) Merely reversing that – taking us back to the Clinton-Gingrich baseline – would be of great benefit.

Interestingly, Nixon and Ford were also bigger domestic spenders (non-defense, non-entitlement) than LBJ. Only Reagan reduced non-defense, non-entitlement spending in real terms.

So military programs are just a version of welfare? This is exaclty why Ike warned agianst the industrial military complex.

“Barney Frank must really hate America. and our soldiers, to be even proposing this”
See exactly what I what I talking about. To suggest that perhaps having an enormous and ever growing military is a bad idea makes you treasonous.
What’s that you said about “classy?”

No kidding. A reduction of that scale would cost the jobs of tens of thousands people employed in the defense industry… especially hard hit would be states like Colorado and Virginia.

There would also have to be a considerable reduction in U.S. Forces. Maybe you can pull it off if you pulled entirely out of Western Europe, Japan, and Korea and let them defend themselves. But there is no indication Obama would be willing to do this.

With a defense reduction of that level, the US would be unable to maintain levels of training and readiness. During the Clinton and Carter years, massive military cuts meant that planes and equipment could not be maintained, spare parts were unavailable, and lives were lost… as at Desert One for example. And those cuts were not as severe as the ones Barney Frank is proposing.

A 25% reduction in the military means that soldiers lives will be lost, tens of thousands will be unemployed, and America will not have the resources to defend her interests abroad. Barney Frank must really hate America. and our soldiers, to be even proposing this.

And when Bush wasn’t governing like a fiscally profligate liberal Democrat, he did attempt some spending reforms. Bush tried to reform social security, but he was blocked by Democrats. (Maybe a few billion in liquidity from people investing some of their SS in the stock market would have precluded the need for a bailout, or at least one so large.) Bush tried 18 times to reform Fannie and Freddie, but was blocked by Democrats each time.

Maybe gillie can explain how his Obamassiah is going to put 47 million on Medicaid, spend 85 billion every year in “Global Poverty Act” relief to third world dictators, create universal pre-K, increase college tuition subsidies, vastly increase the budgets for education and “science,” and spend hundreds of billions in infrastructure projects inspired by Obama’s admiration for Chinese Communists, give tax welfare checks to the 40% of Americans who don’t pay any Federal income tax … and pay for it all with only marginal increases on the top 5% of taxpayers. Even gutting the military like Barney Frank wants to do won’t pay for even a tenth of the expenditures The One has promised.

Why? What would happen?

A twenty-five percent reduction in military spending would be a disaster.

Are you suffering from BDS? Its not just Bush but the whole conservative movement who allowed the fed to expand, listen to our calls, enter into 2 unfunded ground wars, and run up huge debts. The grassroots cheered them on and if you dared to question these efforst you were called treasonous.

[No, not the whole conservative movement. Conservative blogs and editorial pages frequently took the president and congressional GOP to task for their spendthrift ways. I've been doing so for at least three years. --Dan]

ILC- What would you suggest we do to pay off our debt and balence the budget? Cut medicare? Not gonna happen. Cut Social Security? Not gonna happen.

GPW, said it before and here it is again: Bush-Cheney-Rove has been a disaster on domestic policy, throwing money at every problem and for apologetic and contradictory reasons, which only (1) further grows the Federal government and (2) emboldens the Left.

Cheney said, early in the Bush administration, something like ‘Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.’ Talk about about drawing the wrong lessons. We (America) have abused the dollar’s position as a reserve currency these last 45 years, issuing more and more debt (that foreigners dutifully buy) while we go on various spending sprees.

I have a feeling that is about to change. I think we are nearing the point soon where foreigners will stop buying our debt, at which point, the dollar will crash (even more) and the IMF will be here to impose fiscal discipline. Problem is, Obama will handle it by (a) tax increases and (b) military spending cuts… the exact wrong things, as you point out.

the GOP stands as a bulwark against the encroaching power of the state

Not exactly. It did once, and I hope it does again.