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This “Gang of 36″ nonsense is so typical. I’m sure you’ll notice that the only politicians in Washington demanding that the Super Committee “go big” are politicians who aren’t on the Super Committee. This gives them a plausible reason to oppose the committee’s recommendations after the fact, on the ground that they are not “big” enough. It’s an inoculation against criticism, and a way to be seen as anti-deficit and also not actually cause any loss of benefits or cuts to the interests of their wealthy contributors. It’s a sideshow.
On the other hand, there’s this business, from a senior member of the Administration:
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Congress on Thursday that if lawmakers fail to agree on debt-ceiling talks and trigger $1 trillion in Pentagon budget cuts, they could add 1 percentage point to the nation’s jobless rate.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said Thursday that Panetta has relayed those numbers to lawmakers in person and in calls this week, urging Congress to avoid the deadlock that would require the sweeping cuts.
If they were being honest, they would expand this out to the entire concept of austerity. ANY cuts of $1 trillion in the near term would add 1 percentage point to the jobless rate. This is not confined to defense whatsoever. And that’s why it should be undertaken.
But to accept the premise, what Panetta is not saying is that the cuts wouldn’t be all in the near term; the time horizon is 10 years. And even if you trust Panetta’s numbers – and given the extreme waste in the defense budget I see no reason to do so, but let’s just play along for the sake of argument – you’re talking about a 0.1% change per year. This is hardly the problem Panetta’s making it, especially if the trims there mean a redirection of those funds into more productive uses.
The defense budget is bloated. It’s nearly doubled over the last decade, and the necessity for such increases is sorely wanting. Panetta is a budget insider playing an inside game. But it’s deeply insulting to throw up these wild claims about job loss. By the way, you could end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have no bearing on our national security, and get to the exact same $1 trillion in cuts. Do we have to keep killing people in those countries, too, as a make-work jobs program?
UPDATE: Ben Armbruster wrote on this today, and cited a couple studies showing that increases in the defense budget are actually a net job reducer.
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Panetta can kiss my royal Irish ass. He told American troops in Iraq that they were there because of 9/11, thus repeating the biggest Big Lie of the Bush administration.
Great! Another wannabe bushCo appointee, having a large time, in bed with the warbots.
Thanks, Mr. Preznint, for the segue in moving him from Langley to the Pentagon…and making room for Petraeus…After you hung Warren out to dry for months (with her apparent approval…)
Are there ANY progressives that make the cut for your administration, or are all the fucking retards too extreme?
The leader of the Magnificent Mindless ‘Merican Murder Machine wants to kill um all and let God sort um out and a Just God would smite this Godless murder CIA PRICK manic’s ass.
Sow the wind reap the whirlwind of poverty uninsured uneducated unemployed.
The bloated defense budget does 3 things:
Helps pols whore for defense contractor “donations”.
Gives our dipshit political class the means to start stupid wars.
Gives our arrogant oligarchy another control mechanism.
Leons’ right; let’s just draft every american over the age of 14 into the military. Presto! No more unemployment.
Yes. Another edition of Short Answers to Simple Questions.
People who are critical of government spending seem to love talking about employees per dollar of spending. How about applying that to defense contractors? Actually, I’d love to see a count of million dollar incomes paid out of what we spend on defense.
obama has joined the CIA to the military.
the idea is to destroy the middle class and the poor and take that money and use it to wage war against say libya…in order to steal its wealth.
that and of course to insure the illegal drug money (afghan)goes to the right people are the only reasons we invade countries and kill millions of innocents.
Once again there is a double standard about government spending. Pentagon needs trillions of dollars to employ soldiers in ill conceived wars? Great! States need money to pay for teachers, policemen, and public servants? No way!
Has anyone seen the picture at Huff Post of our embassy in Iraq? Talk about a waste of money. Second only to the Taj.
Maybe the free market should take care of finding jobs for our unemployed military workers.
The more I think about the double standard, the more angry I get.
“If they were being honest”. So?
But…but…he’s a Democrat! He’s one of the good guys! Right? Right?
Provide for the common…
It kind of looks like a Moscow suburb circa 1985…
http://bit.ly/oWocH4
Maybe Leon could start looking for that unaccountable $2,300,000,000,000 from a decade ago…
Something about general welfare in there, too, iirc…
David and FDL team you could save space and a lot of time if you just reported stories like this
Defence Sec warns that that if lawmakers fail to agree on debt-ceiling talks and trigger $1 trillion in Pentagon budget cuts, they could add 1 percentage point to the nation’s jobless rate.. Forgets to mention that cuts could be made to huge waste in defence budget, that it routinely gives bloated contracts to favored corporations, spends trillion on wars, that the US spends more than x times on defence than all other countries combined, and its 1 trillion over 10 years. DS okay with cutting granny, the sick and the poor, but we must defend at all costs the defense budget otherwise who would protect granny, the sick and the poor?
Super committee members raising tons of cash from corporations, but say not to worry, the timing is just a coincidence, and there is no way their sudden windfall in donations means they can be bought or influenced. Shareholders of corporations whose exec gave cash are suing exec of corporations saying that they failed in their fiduceary duty to protect shareholders. If handing out cash to politicians will no influence on how they vote than it is misuse of corp funds and needs to stop.
Anyway i guess my point is we all know it is BS and maybe if we condense MSM stories to a few lines we can focus on stories that profile people that might bring about change, and on proposing solutions for change
just a thought
Plus, as I’ve pointed out before, that spending creates very few domestic jobs. If there’s one place you can cut a trillion dollars and not lose too many jobs, it’s there.
I’d call that a win-win, but apparently leaving Afghanistan without declaring victory isn’t a win.
Establish justice
Insure domestic tranquilty
Provide for the common defense
Promote the general welfare
Secure the blessings of liberty
Somehow the common defense bit eclipses all others in importance. I don’t get it.
Could be we’re missing something, like, maybe they meant “retired general welfare.”
He’s probably looking out to protect the continued flow into whatever accounts that money found it’s way to.
Fear. If they’re not seen to be providing adequate defense, and something bad happens, the politicians will be blamed. You don’t get that in any of those other areas.
Hope it’s ok w/you; I think this is probably more accurate, at least in terms of Afghanistan. After all, once GW Shrub called off the Navy Seals from capturing the Bush Crime Syndicate’s friend, Osama bin Laden, in the Tora Bora Hills in October 2001, the next thing Team USA did was get the Afghani War Lords back in the poppy-heroin bidness…. (which the Taliban had shut down, which is why Team USA was so “interested” in ousting the Taliban… had NADA to do with the plight of Afghani women, despite what Stepford Wife Murderer Laura Bush said about it).
That’s not my view, but mine isn’t a whole lot more flattering. I think we’re still there because our “leaders”:
- Don’t want to be blamed for “losing” Afghanistan
- Don’t want to rile the defense establishment
- Can’t get any other sort of jobs program past the people who matter
None strike me as a good reason for staying. Needless to say, no one commenting here is among “the people who matter”, nor most of the rest of the country.
I was there during early years of war and what you say is true. tons of spooks running around with boat loads of cash. warlords/druglords with shocking human rights abuse records now members of govt, running around town with their own private armies. tons of tax payer dollars being funded through the UN etc going to ‘special interests corps” what money was going to women was for bakery, tailoring basket weaving types of programs. where is seemed giving the women a few sewing machines was job training.
I have no doubt. It’s the same old, same old… just exactly what happened in Viet Nam, only this time the spooks had good practice and knew how to hit the ground running. It was blindingly evident to me when the Bush Crime Syndicate pronounced that Osama had fled to Afghanistan that the spooks would rev up the engines & get that poppy-heroin trade back on line.
Everyone knew that the Taliban (who Team USA *funded* & *armed* during the Soviet-Afghan War… and then Team USA just wandered away… see Charlie Wilson’s War) had stopped the heroin trade. CIA couldn’t let that continue! No sir.
Stepford Wife Bush’s drugged out b.s. about “helping our Afghani sisters” made we want to puke. What a load…
other reasons: evangelical jihad, racism, sadism, test new weapons, biggest dickism.
Well have you met her mother in law!!! she is more ruthless the Bush senior. I think one look from Babs and laura’s mind was frozen. All wars are about resources and drugs is a big one. plus all the money is washed through Wall Street, so everyone is on in it.
yes on all counts, esp about Babs & her “beautiful mind.” ick
Is this country good at anything beyond executions and war anymore? When did death become the American Dream?
In all actuality, it’s been that way for a long time. It’s just that US citizens enjoyed a higher standard of living and didn’t have to pay attention to what has long been going on “behind the scenes.” We’ve always had blood on our hands, but most citizens turned their heads and looked the other way, I’m sad to say. Now we no longer can remain in denial, which is good in some ways, albeit the pain is not so good.
What is the US world military strategy?
Nobody is asking the right questions, like–
Why does the US Navy need to continue to safeguard China’s economic lifelines in the seas of the western Pacific, when China is drubbing the US economically?
Why does the US need to defend a part of China, Taiwan, against its national government?
Why can’t the Korean War be ended and Korea reunified?
If not ended, why can’t the much more powerful south defend itself from the north w/o US military support?
Why does the US still have 30,000 troops in Germany?
The US can’t afford to be the world’s police force any longer, particularly when others are capable of pulling their share of the load. China is helping out on piracy, there’s a model.
The United States hasn’t been invaded since 1812 and currently is not threatened by any military force. The US doesn’t need to control the world’s oceans and it doesn’t require a standing army. The widely-promoted idea that the US military is needed to bring stability to the world has certainly been belied by recent events.
So bring on the cuts. The US federal government is currently spending ten billion dollars every day of the year but is receiving only six billion. After several months and years of four billion dollar daily deficits, you’re talking real money. It can’t go on.
Very good questions, all. I think many of us have asked those questions and others of a similar nature.
Of course, most of us posting here know the answers.
No, it cannot go on. It is unsustainable. The USG can radically cut as many programs as it wants & allow the nation to go to wrack and ruin. Citizens can be left to starve & die (which, apparently is part of the plan). But even so, it ends up being unsustainable.
Most citizens, though, are not asking these questions. And/or if they hear such questions, they aren’t interested in figuring out the answers, sad to say.
mswinkle: Which people do you think might bring about change, and what solutions do you propose?
Please, tell us. Too many of us are laboring along under the…”illusion”…that we’re totally screwed. :o)
I mean, other than the occasional truthful (verbal) knee to the groin of the GOP, that Alan Grayson (currently unemployed, as you may know…) delivers, I haven’t heard anyone who might be attractive to a general segment of voters, who’s saying anything LIKE what needs to be done. They’re practially all mushmouths, it seems to me.
Likewise, with Barack Obama having donated his lower glands to the republican party for whatever use they’d like to make of them, I have my doubts that any solution is going to work, until we return Mr. Centrist to the private sector. If that’s at the core of your solution proposals, then count me in.
That last question was rhetorical, ya?
*G*
Wassup hoss . . . I apologize to the nation for Panetta, he’s a CA dude. Course, I apologize for Pelosi, SciFi, Boxer, Issa, and the rest.
Sure there’s worse across the continent, but . . . these fucks are SPOSED to be more libby than most . . . but they ain’t, n that’s not news anyhoot.
Ah well, LeSigh, and pick one for me minor n modal of course.
*G*
*G*
Afghan drugs are NOT the only one’s USA is clandistinely involved in.
Air America flies, still, in many places around the globe.
;-)
Pallets full of money disappeared faster n elephants n pigs dropped from Air America planes . . . . gone!
Heh, lookin for an editors job are ya?
I myself am perfectly content with FDL’s, n Mr. Dayen’s, protocols as is.
It all saves me countless HOURS of having to EVER interface with the MSM shit n that keeps my blood pressure way down.
;-)
Fear my hairy butt, they are all bought off to ensure defense money flows from our government n everyone profits like fornicating rabbits.
It’s a rigged game just like Wall St n the banking/financial industries.
You know that, sorry bout preachin to the choir again . . . but I repeat, fear has NOTHING to do with the shit we are in. None whatsoever.
Plain and simple, as USA has done countless times before, whether it was the opium trade, Vietnam pot n heroin, Iran/Contra and countless other places Air America has flown.
Us older folks, or those with an eye on history learning, to us this is all simply business as usual . . . it’s how the system rolls.
You miss on most counts.
We’re there because of these:
1) Oil, gas, any other minerals
2) To keep OTHERS (Russia, Iran, China) from those things.
3) Lucrative drug trade and ROUTES, drug ROUTES that exact huge cash streams not accounted for which can be reinvested illegally to create other chaotic and illegal usurptations of any thing USA wishes. Not to mention the sick profits it generates, laundered one way or another to YIELD visible profits, or invisible profits.
Nothing else trumps this list other n to use weapons n such for trials and to deplete stocks of weapons so we have to make more which makes defense folks more filthy rich.
Ever wonder why Wall St. scammers never bet short or against defense stocks? Hmm?
Nice descript, thanks . . . had no idea you were over there then.
You describe a scene that could have come from China in the late 1800′s, early 1900′s, dozens of Central and South American countries, SE Asia in the 50′s n 60′s, ect., ect.
I guess if you know what you know, you know the history of this country’s exploits going back a LONG time,
;-)
Hats off to ya, sorry if I was rough earlier . . . can you say what you were doing in Afghan back then in the early 00′s?
Useless question . . . the reality is that it suits what ever need there is to plunder and leverage control and acquisition of wealth.
The question you pose is . . . um, nonsensical? A non sequitor?
Not sure of the term but basically, the question is void of value in askin, cuz the reality is quite different from the one the question would POSIT . . .
Sorry, hoss . . . . the question deflects from what is the issue or reality at hand, which is plain for anyone to see.
;-)
Hey Tan, feel free to jump in here at any time!!
LMBO!
*G*
Larue, believe me, no apology necessary. Not to someone from the land of Strom Thurmond.
And I wasn’t meanin’ to be too snarky with mswinkle, if he, or she, has some positive things to do that might improve our sitch in the next year-and-change, I’m sure willing to listen. But sending money to candidates who either have zero chance of affecting anything, or whom are ignoring the real problem; the one that’s sitting in the White House, is just not my idea of a solution.
Put it like this: I think we need to be negatively disposed toward Barack Obama’s putative second term, before we can be positive about much of anything else.
Obama should replace this middle manager with Chuck Hagel, who thinks that the military needs to shrink and cut spending.
He sits on the Defense advisory board and he agreed with the cuts Bob Gates identified before he left. He’s disgusted by the F-35 Jet engines that congress keeps putting into the budgets. He is against using the military for a jobs program.
Hagel chastises Panetta in this video for fear mongering over the budget last month (and the Republicans extremism).
http://video.ft.com/v/1138459180001/Former-Republican-senator-criticises-party
HBO History Makers with Chuck Hagel – June 14, 2011
Joe Lieberman gets ripped apart by Chuck Hagel on MTP
Barney Frank spoke at Dartmouth’s Tuck Business School late this afternoon. The main point of his talk was that military spending absolutely needs to be cut from 650b down to 400b per year-We are overextended militarily. End both wars, close a lot of the overseas bases, and just focus on mainland US for true defense. He said we cannot keep invading country after country that a whiff of a “terrorist threat” may arise from. He rebuked Leon Panetta about the whole “if you cut the defense budget you’ll cause a lot more unemployment” thing. He said it costs 1$m/year to keep a single soldier in Iraq, and would be so much better and would do an incredible amount more good economically to bring that soldier and that $1m home. He said also there seems to be a cultural lag-that the US is still in the cold war state of mind and it’s killing us financially. This huge defense budget serves to project to the world that the US is the military enforcer of the world. He also commented that folks are arguing to keep US forces in Iraq in order to keep the various ethnic factions from fighting, but it isn’t possible to solve such complex issues by military force alone.
Those were just a few of the points he made. (This is my first real post and I’m pretty tired, so please forgive me for the poor quality and briefness of it. I just got home and saw this headline and as he directly mentioned Panetta today figured I ought to pass on what he said about it.)
Resources? Piffle Afghanistan doesn’t have enough resources to matter, even oil. The estimated reserves in Afghanistan would be about six month’s worth of domestic U.S. production.
As for the illicit drug trade, if any, the people who run things haven’t any motive to allow that that I can see, beyond not riling the CIA, which is part of the defense establishment.
Maybe I’m just prejudiced by having worked with the government for twenty-plus years, but I saw plenty of fear. Most managers get where they are there by not rocking the boat. That’s as true at the top of the food chain as it is everywhere else. Anyone who can take his power away is a potential threat to a politician, and the folks I mentioned are among those who can.
As far as I can tell, while Afghanistan might seem to you and me to be just a poor, small, mountainous land full of illiterate people on the other side of the earth, it does have some redeeming value to the geniuses that run things.
1. It is bonded sacredly to 9/11 which We Will Never Forget™. Safe Havens — bad. Spending tons of money and wasting lives in this forsaken place — good.
2. It is the entre to the US Central Asia (Silk Road) strategy which has been laid out by the US State Department to be of vital importance. On the western flank of China, and on the southern flank of Russia. Vital. Lots of oil and gas too.
That argument seems like desperation to me.
Arguing that the Defense Department is a jobs bill is kinda stupid. It flies for a Congressman in his district; the money has already been appropriated; we’re just getting our share. I don’t think it convinces folks when presented nationally as a policy.
It sounds more like a desperate attempt to keep the “neutron bomb” as a threat, not an outcome.
“Nobody is asking the right questions” sums up what’s wrong with all 3 branches of government and explains why public support for any of them has no floor.