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Dec. 6th, 2010 01:49 pmhttp://www.newsweek.com/2010/12/06/what-the-bowles-simpson-plan-left-out.html
The biggest blunder of their approach involved huge proposed cuts in defense, about a fifth of federal spending. National security is government's first job. Bowles and Simpson reduced it proportionately with all other discretionary spending as if there's no difference between a dollar for defense and a dollar for art subsidies.
Hoo boy. False logic there. This sort of attempt to justify defense spending at a given function of its present level because, "defense is a moral priority," overlooks the practical question of how much defense spending we need. The real answer is, not near as much as we spend. Global hegemony is not a constitutional necessity. Most defense spending is really economic/jobs spending, period. We could replace it with welfare & public works & get most of the same effect.
We need to look at how much things actually cost, not take present expenditure levels & then try to make cuts in those based on a feeling of fuzzy moral priority. In fact, since defense spending grew so much in the previous century, it should perhaps be cut more than other programs at this point, not because it's morally inferior but because it has so much more slack capacity.
In short, Mr Samuelson, your attitude is what's wrong with America.
The biggest blunder of their approach involved huge proposed cuts in defense, about a fifth of federal spending. National security is government's first job. Bowles and Simpson reduced it proportionately with all other discretionary spending as if there's no difference between a dollar for defense and a dollar for art subsidies.
Hoo boy. False logic there. This sort of attempt to justify defense spending at a given function of its present level because, "defense is a moral priority," overlooks the practical question of how much defense spending we need. The real answer is, not near as much as we spend. Global hegemony is not a constitutional necessity. Most defense spending is really economic/jobs spending, period. We could replace it with welfare & public works & get most of the same effect.
We need to look at how much things actually cost, not take present expenditure levels & then try to make cuts in those based on a feeling of fuzzy moral priority. In fact, since defense spending grew so much in the previous century, it should perhaps be cut more than other programs at this point, not because it's morally inferior but because it has so much more slack capacity.
In short, Mr Samuelson, your attitude is what's wrong with America.
