Defence cuts

The enemy within

Ships lie uselessly at anchor and lay-offs loom as deep Congress-imposed spending cuts look ever more likely to go ahead

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Readers' comments



George Kovac

The Republicans have argued for decades that Keynes was a fraud and that fiscal stimulus has no effect because only private sector jobs are real jobs and only private sector purchases constitute a genuine contribution to the economy. The GOP now has the clean opportunity to demonstrate their economic wisdom. The loss of hundreds of thousands of government sector jobs and the abrupt cessation of billions of dollars in government spending ought to have no adverse effect on the economy, in fact it will unleash the private sector to absorb the slack, if Republican economic ideology is correct and consistenly applied. So we have nothing to fear and should expect the US economy to burgeon under the sequester. I mean, what could go wrong with that plan?


Unless the US is about to attempt world conquest, there is no reason for our country to spend nearly as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. It is insanity.


Why, everybody knows there's no waste in the Pentagon. Besides, it's critical that they have the proper equipment to save NATO from the Warsaw Pact.

Jack Drysen

Regardless of whether you agree with defense spending cuts, you must admit some rather interesting tactics are being used here. Notably, both sides of the isle are avoiding responsibility for cutting military spending. Indeed, proclaiming that politicians avoid taking responsibility for anything "unfavorable" merely states the obvious - it's how they have gone about avoiding responsibility that's interesting. Everyone knows that since 9/11 the defense budget has skyrocketed to unsustainable levels. Because this has been going on for so long, many contractors and civilian employees of the Defense Department have taken their much-improved lots in life for granted. Also, over the last decade the United States has greatly improved their ability to fight and win wars. But no nation-state can survive by spending itself into oblivion.

So the question is: How can the United States Government make the cuts they know are necessary without looking like a declining power?

The Theory of Loss Aversion posits that humans tend to prefer avoiding loss rather than acquiring gains. With this in mind, the best choice for Congress is to seem temporarily dysfunctional rather than impotent. In other words, Congress has chosen dysfunction as a proxy for decline. We know that politicians build careers out of making themselves look good despite the truth. Through fear mongering and posturing, politicians are adept at making something awful seem understandable or even acceptable to the weak-minded. Therefore, although incompetence is not a desirable trait for anyone to possess, it's certainly better than powerlessness - especially for politicians. Imagine: What if Congress along with the Executive suddenly put their arms around each other and, with dreary faces, said on camera that "times have been tough" and "we've failed to build wealth as a nation" and that the United Stats is "just weary of war"? What would our allies think? What would our enemies think? What would you think? Consider the infamous "malaise" speech that President Carter gave in 1979. Although the speech was almost entirely accurate, it did not bode well for President Carter politically. In hindsight, he may have done better in the election by pulling a Bush and talking about "strategery" - seeming incompetent may have been a better tactic for political survival. Unfortunately, this tactic may not enhance the strength of the United States moving forward, as it encourages delusional thinking rather than rational problem solving. Perhaps the people of the United States should start focusing on how to solve problems rather than recreating past successes or protecting the status quo. It seems as if too many people are afraid deal with reality. Not a good place to be.

Rob Roberts in reply to Semperpaxpax

Who is John Galt?
The rich, entitled d-bag that quit and took his ball home because his federal tax rate went up slightly and because my mother wants to collect her Social Security check she earned by paying into SS for forty years.


Fox, the Republican communications network, is calling the sequester a "cut in the growth of government" (rather than just a cut), and -
Charlie Krauthammer is calling the sequester "the most ridiculously hyped Armageddon since the Mayan Calender".
In related news, the popularity of the GOP continues to fall, with it's unapproval rating now at 60%.


Addicted to money, that is what Congress and this president are...addicts. The $60B raised from the last round of tax increases just got spent on the Sandy storm. Now they want more. The sequester will cut 2.5 percent from the budget. Let's put this in perspective. If you have a budget of $1,000 per month and were ordered to cut $25 from this budget, would you lose your house, go without food, have to go to the poor house? Give me a break.

Only an addict would complain if they were forced to reduce their spending by $25 out of $1,000.


You failed to mention, of course, that the sequester was originally the idea of President Obama. You also failed to mention that when the super-committee failed to pass the necessary cuts and the Republicans wanted to change the terms of the sequester, President Obama made that famous speech towards the end of 2011 in which he promised to veto any bill that reduced the amount of the sequester. Yes, he promised to veto any change.

And here he is, accusing the Republicans for the end of the world. If people were not so dumb, this would be funny. I have no doubt that the masses will buy the new version of who is to blame put forward by the White House and the press.

There is one thing for certain: it is impossible to get any real spending cuts from this president. The sequester, in which he trapped himself by miscalculating its probabilities, is the only way any cuts in spending could become reality.

George Kovac in reply to DSifbdySpm

"Scheme" in British usage merely means a plan, a program. It is a neutral, descriptive term. Only in American usuage does "scheme" have a pejorative connotation. Two countries, divided by a common language.


George Will put it nicely: "We're growing weary of catastrophe du jour"





See entire article at:


The only sight sadder than our hulking carriers moored helplessly in the harbor is our hulking carriers waging needless wars abroad.

Clastics in reply to Greg Suhr

If my business made the decision to reduce spending by 2% and the impact to the customer was similar to what is being argued (ships not traveling, waits at airports, mass layoffs, etc), our entire management team would be fired.

We surely wouldn't maximize the affects of these cuts to argue that our customers pay us more. They would go elsewhere.

John Eh

I am just a furriner, looking in from the outside, so I do not have a horse in this race.
That said, I have read the comments. Some of them seem exceeding wise.
I especially like those comments that ask questions. Maybe it's a distance thing or maybe I have not been paying attention, but while I've seen some dandy questions, I've a shortage of answers.
Just how much defence is enough? The latest figures I've seen show the US spending more than the next 14 big spenders put together. Is that enough? Too much? Just right? I really have no idea, but it might be a good idea for congress to get a handle on it.
How about Social Security? What should it pay, and who should it pay it to? As I understand the plan, Warren Buffett is eligible for Social Security, while a 65 year old widow who has worked aome times and paid into the plan for only 39 quarters isn't. Is that okay? Good? Bad? None of the above?
What if that widow develops cancer? Who pays for the treatment? Her until she's broke and living under an overpass? You, the taxpayer? No one and she just falls off her perch?
There is a limited amount of money to go around. What gets paid for first?
I know how we've sorted it out here, but that's us. We do not have the foreign and domestic commitments you have, so our model really is pretty irrelevant to your problems.
I wish you all the best, because this is not simply going to go away when the snow melts.
Regards to all!

bampbs in reply to George Kovac

According to the GOP, everyone in government is a superfluous fool, except for Republican elected officials, those they have appointed and all the folks who see to our ability to make war.
Oh, and don't forget those in their District or State who have government jobs.
Of course, it's a bunch of hooey from a bunch of ridiculous hypocrites.

Fredlinskip in reply to John-Galt10

Here's some more fundamentals. Trickle down didn't work. That is if you care about nation's debt and employment. If you don't care about debt and employment- Hey let's repeat all the same policies that got us here.- Great! We now have a lop-sided economy where the wealthy few have written the rules and reaped the benefit of the gains. The last time it was this bad was before the Great Depression. We now have an admin trying to reverse these trends and encourage an economy that works for all,
And thankfully- though it's painfully slow, we've made some progress.

Enola Gay

"...the defence budget must shrink by a whopping 8% this year..".
The military superpower in the world has a theoretical capability to terminate all life on this beautiful blue green planet.
Sequester that!


In June 22, 2007 H.R. 2834, was introduced in the US Senate, which would eliminate the ability of persons performing investment-adviser or similar services to partnerships to receive capital-gains tax treatment on their income; in other words, killing the "carried Interest" tax subsidy for Hedge Fund Managers. The issue of favorable tax rates for carried interest was a hot issue during the 2012 race for President, because 31% of candidate Mitt Romney's 2010/2011 income of $25 Million was carried interest, taxed at 15%.

Why do I bring this up? Because the GOP believes that protecting Hedge Fund manager special tax treatment is more important than the country's general welfare. This is the enemy within.

Greg Suhr

The WhitehouseDOTgov website shows estimated US Federal spending this year of $3.8 trillion - so an $85 billion cut represents a reduction of only 2.2% in planned spending. I'd note, that the current administration has never actually passed a budget so I can't say this is a budget cut, but as a spending cut 2.2% doesn't seem to be asking too much....especially since average working Americans just saw their budgets cut 2% January 1st when the Social Security payroll tax went from 4% to 6%.


$85 billion is about 8.5% of a $1 trillion annual budget. It's chicken feed. Every department and agency in the federal government certainly wastes more than that each year. It should be easy for the federal government to accommodate a cut of 8.5% in funding just by reducing waste. After all, private employers have been doing that for four years. Obama and his crew are trying to make of this way more than it is in order to blame the GOP. But we have to remember the sequester idea came from the Obama White House. I suppose you could say Obama was for it before he was against it.
Starve the beast!
Who is John Galt?



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