Defense cuts pose an economic quandary for liberals

[Pterodactyl]

Source: Washington Post

Liberals are increasingly facing a conundrum as the Pentagon experiences the deepest cuts in a generation: The significant reductions in military spending that they have long sought are also taking a huge bite out of economic growth.

Liberal lawmakers and others on the left have argued for years that the military budget is bloated and should be dramatically scaled back. At the same time, they have been major advocates of government spending to help drive economic growth and create jobs.

...

“It makes me feel torn,” said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “The bottom line is military spending is government spending, and in the absence of any sort of other stimulus for the private sector, we need to get it where we can.”

The pattern of military cuts is expected to continue over the coming months. The United States is intensifying its withdrawal from Afghanistan and has exited Iraq. And a pair of budget measures — including budget caps put in place in 2011 and the reductions known as sequestration — are forcing the military to sharply cut back.


Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/defense-cuts-pose-an-economic-quandary-for-liberals/2013/04/28/6cc78b72-b01b-11e2-9a98-4be1688d7d84_story.html?hpid=z1

[Iliyah]

1. Washington Post is owned

by Murdock, enough said.

[Pterodactyl]

4. Actually, the Wash. Post is not owned by him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post_Company

[Javaman]

11. You are thinking of the NY Post. nt

[4dsc]

2. I don't believe this crap for a moment

I will chose what to believe in and I believe its good to cut defense spending.

[daleo]

3. Use the money for schools, roads, bridges, healthcare, support for the poor, research...

Life-giving useful stuff.

[jeff47]

6. Sure, if any of us were benevolent dictator.

The folks in the actual government have to deal with a Republican party that won't spend any money on that.

But they will buy tanks the Army doesn't want. Which will employ a bunch of people building tanks.

About as useless as the "United States Hole Filling Company" following the "National Hole Digging Company" around the country. But it does stimulate the economy.

[harun]

5. Fuck You WP, Fuck You.

[bobclark86]

16. Why fuck them?

Why not the Republicans who pushed for the military-industrial complex instead of the mass transit and green energy-industrial complex?

The WP has a point: There are millions of workers who build tanks, fighters, radios and all sorts of stuff for the military. What are you going to do, lay them all off? Don't just say "make other stuff," as it takes time to allocate funding, do R&D, tool production lines, get them started and up to speed. These things don't happen overnight. It took years to ramp up production during World War II, and we were afraid of getting invaded as a motivator.

Meanwhile, the 11 million Americans already unemployed will be joined by another 15 million -- a 25-percent unemployment rate is unacceptable and would instantly lead to a GOP landslide in every election for the next decade (remember, the libruls Took Yer Jerb!). To just hack it off and expect something to grow overnight is at the very least flat-out ignorant.

That said, we need to START the process. THAT'S where are attention should be focused. Gay marriage and gun control are lovely ideals, but happy, working rednecks who owe their jobs to Democrats could be persuaded to change their ballot marking habits a lot faster than ones who got laid off from the tank factory. Build the economy in a non-military way and the rest will follow.

[harun]

18. The MIC cost we want to cut is not jobs or wages, but corporate looting.

More than enough low hanging fruit there to get before anyone loses their job building drones.

[bemildred]

21. Because they are lying dissembling propagandists, that is why.

They are fair game, and they chose to be.

[Occulus]

7. The cuts are one order of magnitude too small and should be ANNUAL and IMMEDIATE.

Piss on the hawks.

“It makes me feel torn,” said Rep. Keith Ellison

SPINE! FOR ONCE! ONE TIME! PLEASE!!

[bobclark86]

17. Wonder what his re-election slogan would have been...

how about, "sure, you don't have a job and we had to hack your benefits and jack up your taxes to pay for the near-tripling of people like you, but I can move numbers around in a budget better than the other guy!"

Kind of long, but unless we're going to find other ways to spend that money on things these people can already do, then the above is exactly what is going to happen. We can't just magically retool factories, or re-educate these workers for new jobs overnight (although a Matrix port on the back of the head could be pretty badass...), or send them to pick vegetables at a fraction of their current wages, without some kind of a plan.

So, the question remains: WHY ISN'T ANYONE PLANNING THIS SHIT!?!?

[MrSlayer]

8. The money wasted on killing is supposed to go for building.

No one wants to cut defense spending just to cut spending, we want to use that money for better things like jobs and education.

Just eliminating the spending does no real good.

[Purveyor]

9. Disgusting that the US economic model is partly based on death, destruction and we being the

'world police'...

This gig is about up as we are broke and will soon 'reap what we have sown' should we continue down this path.

[John2]

10. Military spending

is bloated. It rose significantly from the levels of the 90s. The U.S. spends significantly more on the military than any other country in the World. The military spends money in over 150 countries in the World. That money could be spent somewhere else in the economy, like infrastructure. Ellison says that you need to get Government spending from somewhere. You need to shift Government spending and stop cutting it for domestic programs. You are cutting government employees in those areas. The Government was the biggest employers in the economy versus the private sector and they had more job stability. What is going on, the government jobs are being privatized. That drain needs to stop.

[Javaman]

12. Wouldn't it be something if the defense industry retrofitted to make

wind turbines and solar panels.

[Blue_Tires]

14. Thank you...Pour the $$$$ into science, education, NASA, public infrastructure, rail, etc.

[Myrina]

15. ^^ This ^^

You'd think they'd already be R&D'ing that, since we haven't had a Cold War for almost 30 years ...

[Dustlawyer]

13. Think of the great minds wasted on creating the machines of war.

We could use the engineering for sure!

[bemildred]

19. We're OK with spending all that money, just on something more productive.

Like roads and bridges and schools and farms and hospitals and clinics ...

[closeupready]

20. WA Post is a Beltway driver of Sunday morning talk.

So obviously, as a card-carrying part of the pro-Establishment Fourth Estate, they WOULD try to push this angle.

Not buying it.

[Daniel537]

22. National Defense should not be a jobs program.

It should be limited strictly to the security of the country, nothing more. If we ended the War on Drugs, a lot of law enforcement agents would be left without a job as well, but so be it. A choice between killing people overseas for some imperialist blunder, and creating more jobs for sleazy contractors is no choice at all. This article is nothing but your typical neo-con filth from WaPost, although i'm surprised that someone like Keith Ellison would go along with it.