Now that Speaker Boehner is on board with Rep. Paul Ryan's war on the poor, the sick, and the old, we can expect Rep. Kristi Noem to stop playing coy and parrot the leadership's support for ending Medicare as we know it.
What we can not expect is that Rep. Noem will pay attention to what Madison Daily Leader publisher Jon Hunter is saying about the federal budget. Our man Hunter makes an obvious point, but an uncomfortable one for South Dakota's Congressional delegation: to balance the budget, military spending must be cut:
Even though the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are funded separately, the base defense budget has grown dramatically in recent years, more than 9 percent per year since 2000, more than triple the rate of inflation.
More tellingly, the defense budget has grown more than the military has requested, because members of Congress have amended the appropriations bills to include spending the Pentagon doesn't want. Typically, this nonrequested spending is so that a member of Congress can boost an equipment supplier or military base in his or her district.
We argue that today's wasteful spending in the name of defense actually weakens our nation's ability to defend itself. Every dollar that goes to something the Pentagon doesn't need is a dollar that could be used for something productive [Jon Hunter, "National Security Won't Be Hurt If Defense Budget Is Cut," Madison Daily Leader, 2011.04].
Now sure, Hunter manages to use the passive voice twice in one headline, but his essay delivers strong medicine. Saying defense spending is off limits (as Noem seemed to say when she exposed her ignorance of specific cuts she has voted for) abandons responsible budgeting. We might just as well say diplomacy, trade, foreign aid, and education are off limits, since those tools can also prevent wars and protect American security, possibly more cost-effectively than breaking things and killing people.
I will accept, as President Barack Obama argued this afternoon, that balancing the budget will require making changes in the four programs that make up two thirds of that budget: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the military. Like the President, I won't accept a fantasy plan that destroys Medicare any more than I would accept a plan that destroys our military. But as our man Hunter says, a lasting budget fix will require looking at all programs, including the military, including South Dakota's Ellsworth Air Force Base, for opportunities to do more with less. Perhaps Rep. Noem will surprise me and listen to Mr. Hunter.
Or, we could simply raise and restructure our taxes by a moderate amount to return the US to an upwardly mobile society that is fiscally solvent.
The USA accounts for 42% of all military spending in the entire world. Everybody else only accounts for 58% COMBINED. That seems like a pretty easy area to trim fat from the budget. That is, unless we really want to be the world's policeman for all time... until we go broke, that is, and live in the Mad Max wreckage of our former empire.
Mr. Hunter must have a pretty good view from his perch there on Pandora.
I've become much more libertarian on War over the last few years.
Get in. Get out. But win with overwhelming force and then end the stupid thing one way or another. It is after all WAR!
Cory,
Haven't had time to read Ryan's plan but is this similar to what SHS said she supported back during the election and Kristi denied?
Ryan's plan last year included privatizing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. That's certainly what he's proposing with Medicare. Note that Ryan isn't talking about reducing costs; he's just shifting burdens from government to individuals.