GOP Putting a Silencer on Obama Defense Cuts
The Obama administration has enacted the most significant weapon systems cuts in more than 30 years, and this after enacting an unprecedented $780 billion so-called economic stimulus package in which defense spending was virtually non-existent.
The Obama administration was successful in pushing through its defense cuts because of the weak complicity of the Republican Party. Senators McCain and Graham, Representatives McHugh and McKeon, and most other Republicans have been all too willing to accept a defense austerity budget.
McCain, in fact, helped lead the charge to kill the F-22 fighter jet and was instrumental in passing the mislabeled “Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act of 2009.” This mislabeled piece of legislation will help to further stymie and belabor an already overregulated and plodding weapon systems acquisition process.
McHugh talked a better game than McCain, but it was mostly just for show, and Obama knew this. That’s why the President appointed McHugh to be Secretary of the Army.
It is not clear why the U.S. military should be singled out to make “hard choices.” Why when the United States is at war with an international consortium of state-sponsored terrorists who plan and plot the destruction of America’s cities, and when spending on everything else is being significantly, and sometimes dramatically, increased?
But if the U.S military has to make “hard choices,” then it behooves our elected representatives to at least understand what those “hard choices” entail. In truth, though, most politicians don’t want to grapple with the defense budget and with U.S. military requirements in the 21st century.
Instead, the Republicans want to build a military much like we had in the Cold War, where our ground forces are seriously shortchanged in favor of the Air Force and Navy. The Republicans seem to assume that our troops will not be engaging in irregular warfare, counterinsurgency missions and nation-building. The Democrats, meanwhile, seem intent on transforming the military into a social-welfare adjunct of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Both parties are more interested in politics than in the defense budget. However, it is the Republicans who have suffered the most from this bipartisan failure to seriously study and assess U.S. military requirements. The GOP, after all, sang from the Cold War playbook for decades; and by championing the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan, Republicans have been able to project an image of hawkish seriousness.
Not anymore. The GOP has been no less supportive of Obama’s defense cuts than the Democrats. And, rightly or wrongly, Republican stewardship of Iraq and Afghanistan, when George W. Bush was president, has cast serious doubt on the party’s administrative competence and national defense credentials. Thus, thoughtful voters are increasingly willing to give the Democrats a second look and a fair hearing.
In short, the GOP no longer can take the votes of veterans, defense hawks, and national security conservatives for granted. If the Republican Party wants to win these voters back, then they are going to have to earn them. This means they’re gonna have to go back to school on the defense budget, and especially on U.S. military requirements in the 21st century.