We agree, but disagree. We're very fickle like that.
As we've mentioned time and time before, you cannot be concerned with the deficit unless you are concerned about health care. Social Security is not a long run problem. Discretionary spending is not a long run problem. Defense spending is not a long run problem. Health care is.
And yet.
Advocating cuts to the defense budget makes no sense if you're looking to cure our structural budget issues. But protecting the DoD while advancing draconion cuts to essential non-defense services is the height of idiocy. Defense amounts to 20% of spending - the entire non-defense discretionary budget is three-fourths of that.
So don't cut defense to cure the deficit. But if you insist on kneecapping programs like SCHIP, nutritional assistance, the Department of Transportation, education, and research and science, then defense should at least shoulder an equal burden.
. . . if we’re talking about fiscal issues, you have to bear the arithmetic in mind. We’re not living in the 1950s, when defense was half the federal budget. Even a drastic cut in military spending wouldn’t release enough money to offset more than a small fraction of the projected rise in health care costs.
So by all means, let’s try to crack down on the massive waste that goes on in matters military. But doing so would be of only modest help on the larger budget problem.
