Military, stimulus spending stir comments
EDITOR’S NOTE: A letter to the editor on military spending, and a guest commentary by a local radio host and former Congressional candidate on the federal government’s stimulus spending had online commentators up in arms last week.
HEADLINE: Military, not health care, will bankrupt us
SUMMARY: Our annual military budget is $800 billion, a little less than the cost of the health care reform plan approved by the House of Representatives for 10 years. Our military spends more than double that of China, France, the UK, Japan, Russia, Iran, North Korea and Canada combined. If the U.S. is going broke it won’t be due to a national health care plan.
COMMENTS: 120
The problem with the military is that the government allows contractors to charge ten times more than something is worth. Any contractor loves a government contract because they can charge $200 for a hammer that cost $20 at home depot. If you consider this for every little thing from building materials for new housing to high tech weapons systems, the waste is ridiculous. Many of these contractors line the pockets of politicians so no one puts an end to it. (SLRNashuan)
How about we get some facts straight. The author decides to leave some out. The $800 billion spending on military is also for the wars. (Wars Obama now supports) The budget in 08, 09 and 2010 was put together, voted on and passed by a Congress controlled by Democrats. It is Democrats who have overseen three years of yearly $800 billion in military spending. There is something wrong with people who so blindly support one party that they blame another for their own party’s faults. (JD)
Leftists carp about how we spend far, far more on our military than other countries … as if they, in their infinite wisdom, understand where that line between having enough military to deter enemies really stands. That line is a limit; we won’t know we’ve reached it until we exceed it.
Let’s say we cut our defense budget by 10 percent. Nobody attacks us. Cool. We reduce it again. Nobody attacks us. Cool. We reduce it again. Now, we get attacked. Ooops. We went too far … small comfort to the fact that we’re now in a war with China. Or Iran. Or Russia.
Ultimately, those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who don’t. That sad reality is anathema to the utopian vision of world peace, that starts out with the hope “if only we could just change human nature.” Delusional, that’s what leftists are. (Genghis_Khan)
HEADLINE: As expected, big-government programs haven’t done the job
SUMMARY: In a guest commentary on Sunday, Nov. 15, WSMN radio commentator Jennifer Horn offered the opinion that “Jobs are created on Main Street, not in Washington. It is the entrepreneurial spirit of small-business owners and the innovation of the individual that leads to new job growth in America.”
COMMENTS: 225
Benjamin Disraeli said “A Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.” He knew Ms. Horn? Grover Norquist said as he entered government, “My goal is to cut government in half in 25 years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Cut the stimulus as far as you can and then complain it doesn’t do the job. Oppose health care reform and then complain government can’t fix health care.
As P.J. O’Rourke said, “Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work, and then get elected and prove it.” (tomgnh)
Those who argued vehemently against the Recovery Act did so for many reasons, mostly how much was going to be spent and how. A desire to be fiscally responsible and apply solutions that have been known to work is not a disconnect, it’s common sense.
Bailouts provided to fiscally bankrupt states that are liberal to the core like California only rewarded failure. Their liberal policies worked out real well, I see. The notion that propping up state and municipal jobs was going to somehow result in job creation in the private sector is ridiculous. (MsOreally)
Obama and the government need a business plan in order to start to review laws, trade policies, banking and other regulations and have some understanding of what favorable policies will do for the private sector to create jobs. Community organizers have no experience with this, and Congress is so much beholden to the special interests that they will only do what is good for the largest businesses, Wall St., and themselves.
The Wall Street Journal made the comment that Obama has no business plan to try to fix the unemployment and jobs situation. Without a plan, you can’t fix anything! Redistributing wealth, without policies for creating new wealth, will only eventually reduce all in the middle class to the level of food stamps. (bobsr)
