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Obama’s Stealth Defense Cuts

By: Josh Painter (Diary)  |  January 31st, 2009 at 09:51 AM  | 

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Late last night we asked “Is Obama preparing to cut the defense budget?” All we had to work with at the time were personal observations by some who had seen a Fox News report that the president had asked the Pentagon to slash defense spending by 10%. The story had not yet been posted on the FNC website at that late hour.

But a sharp-eyed RS commenter spotted the story here in the early morning hours. Fox had finally put the story up on it’s website. But FNC is the only one. So far, no mention of it at CNN or MSDNC. There’s a reason for this. When politicians take actions which they know they will take heat for, they always do it on Fridays, after the news cycle has peaked, to minimize media coverage. And it’s working for the administration so far, as this story is still very much off of the media radar screen, save for one short item at Fox News. Obama wants to avoid the inevitable contrast that will be drawn between these cuts and the pork in his unpopular stimulus bill. Not a single House Republican voted for it, and for very good reasons:

Here are just a few of the programs and projects that have been included in the House Democrats’ proposal:

$650 million for digital TV coupons.
$600 million for new cars for the federal government.
$6 billion for colleges/universities – many which have billion dollar endowments.
$50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts.
$44 million for repairs to U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters.
$200 million for the National Mall, including $21 million for sod.

The plan establishes at least 32 new government programs at a cost of over $136 billion. That means more than a third of this plan’s spending provisions are dedicated to creating new government programs.

Obama wants billions to expand the federal government, billions more for government extravagance, and yet he intends to slash defense by at least $55 Billion. Meanwhile, Russia and China are aggressively expanding their navies with new aircraft carriers, and even though the Russian economy is reeling from low oil and gas prices, the Kremiln’s military budget is now double what it was in 2006. While neither of these countries are yet close to having a military with the ability to project power around the world as the U.S. is able to do, they are working on it. We should not be cutting our military at a time when potential rivals are expanding theirs.

This is all too familiar. Yet another Democrat administration seems determined to weaken our defenses and make our enemies bolder. God help us.

- JP

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COMMENTS

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  • sconklin

    Obama does have a Raytheon lobbyist in his cabinet afterall

  • robmikpet

    EVERTHING the Dems do is also based on votes. The only area of government that is reliably conservative is the military. So it gets cut.

    Also, the media will be complicit with whatever Obama does. They love the government but the military is a waste.

    Some at Redstate may tire of my predictability but WE ARE AT WAR PEOPLE!! The left seeks to turn us to socialism and disarm us so we do not have any military options to defend our interests.

    Then Hillary can talk and talk and talk. And then Obama can have foreign policy photo ops. The media will gleefully cover all these “historic” meetings but after the headline is gone America will be getting steadily weaker and the world will become a more dangerous place.

  • http://www.RedState.com/ETCartman Kenny Solomon

  • 1SGinTN

    via more gov’t programs is more important than stimulating the defense industry and keeping us safe.

  • woodsman

    use half of it for tax incentives, tax reductions, etc and the other half for increasing the military budget. The tax reduction would certainly help revive the economy and job growth while the military spending would also provide a two-fold benefit; employment and protection (and by protection I don not mean defensive!).

  • Josh Painter

    in light of a $56 million net quarterly loss and signs of trouble ahead: Story is here.

    Any time is a bad time to cut defense, but this is the worst of times to be doing it.

    - JP

  • reddog53

    Josh is right on target.

    This is startling when compared to the things the Democrats want to fund instead.

    A 10% cut will wreak havoc on troops in the field, one way or another. Not a good idea!

  • http://conservative-and-proud.blogspot.com/ eschristian

    at least 55 Billion Dollars and “weapons programs” will have to be cut – does that mean Obama is pushing for what he said in that video that he had made for whatever left looney group he was speaking to? He was talking about cutting space program missile defense I believe in that video – I’ll see can I find the link.

  • http://conservative-and-proud.blogspot.com/ eschristian

    It is not like Obama did not warn us of his liberal plans (video was posted on youtube March 06, 2008):

    “I will cut 10′s of billions of dollars in wasteful spending, I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems” and “I will not weaponize space, I will slow our development of future combat systems and I will institute an independent defense priority board to ensure that the quadrennial (every 4 years) review is not used to justify unnecessary spending.” and “I will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons, I will not develop new nuclear weapons, I will seek a global ban production of missile material and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBM’s OFF air trigger alert and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal” He also pledged to end the war in Iraq and bragged he was the “only candidate against this war from the beginning”!!!
    B. Hussein. Obama (see video below)

    Elections have consequences – THANKS Kool Aide sipping geniuses who voted for this guy!!!

    I’m getting one of Rush’s new Club Gitmo shirts “when America was safe” “water” “board” shirts – funny and cool shirt but in reality of the situation how sad but true.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zhor0AfC8EQ

  • scotchex

    at least for my relatives in the DC/NOVA area. The defense contractors gave Obama about a week to see if he really meant all his anti-defense campaign rhetoric. Apparently the answer was yes because news of the layoffs started leaking out a few days ago.

    The Obama administration had a bunch of closed door meeting with defense industry leaders in the first week … and judging by the # of my relatives now looking for work, it’s pretty clear that Obama intends to slash defense spending.

    Defense contractors tend to be ex-military Republicans — and Obama has already shown an extreme unwillingness to help that particular class of Americans. Obama is very good at targeting his spending – why give money to Republicans when he can give that money to Democrats? He’s gonna massively increase govt spending on almost every govt function — except defense.

  • robmikpet

    n/t

  • rbdwiggins

    At the same time the foreign policy strategies of our enemies are being recalibrated to reflect President Obama’s perceived weakness, common sense dictates that US defense spending should be substantially increased, but Obama is determined to repeat Clinton’s mistake.

    As posited on your previous post: A 30% increase in defense spending would bring it in line with the historical averages.

    Given the urgent need for the US to get out in front of the efforts to secure “space,” while simultaneously honoring our international obligations,I’m not convinced that a 30% increase in defense spending will be enough.

  • DefendUSA

    The peacetime dividends that were greatly multiplied under Reagan and held steady under Bush 41, were all squandered by Clinton and thus put Bush 43 in a precarious position when it came to defending against the terrosism and the newer “weapons” IED’s, etc. our troops encountered.

    And, again the dividends we have benefitted from are of no significance to the COW, (teleprompter Jesus, IceCreamMan, SpeedBump Musim, pick one), because his special interests come before the military…

    Couple this with the fact the he ignored General Petraeus with his “I won” comment and now the tyrant Ahmuhnutjob has thrown his words and actions back at him means we are in deep kimche.
    I say again, is this President in the closet with his true alliances and ready to cave to the Muslim world?

  • http://conservative-and-proud.blogspot.com/ eschristian

    “I say again, is this President in the closet with his true alliances and ready to cave to the Muslim world?”

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    Or to put it another way, the left certainly doesn’t want to live under a Muslim theocracy. But they also want to destroy Western liberalism (in the classical sense of the word, not the modern sesnse), which is the only historical bulwark against tyranny and allowing a radical Islam that worships imposing Sharia by force to come to an ascendency among Muslims.

    The delusion is that these Islamist and secular totalitarian forces will live and let live with leftists – that they well let the leftists live their own lives in peace if they sacrifice the rest of the world. The old delusion that you can buy-off the barbarians at the gate.

    Multi-millions or even billions will die, I’m afraid, if the left is able to disarm our military might and our economy – either from terrorist and/or collapse of the economic and civil infrastructures.

    Not sure how long it will take to reach that point of no return, but if we don’t start changing the momentum by 2010 or 2012, we will be in for a very rude awakening for survival that will test us to the core.

  • Wayne

    penny for defense, millions for sod, condoms, bureaucracy. I’m sure the F-22 will be stopped, the F-35 cancelled, the M1A2 upgrades cancelled, among other items in the defense budget.

  • scotchex

    Not to mention FCS, missile defense, and advanced satellites — all of which Obama has pledged to gut. We also have a rapidly declining Navy. 600 ship Navy under Reagan. Down to 300 today and heading toward 200.