As China builds its military, non-state combatants challenge nations around the world, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons continues apace, this is no time to undermine a military
In the preamble of the Constitution, the founding fathers made clear their priorities and among them was “provide for the common defense” to “secure the blessings of liberty.”
Ramping up an army and navy was an early priority of the nation’s first presidents because, then as now, the United States had real enemies.
The congressional “super committee” charged with finding cuts in the budget is testimony to the failure of Congress to attend to one of its primary duties and to the gridlock of partisanship. The notion of an automatic across-the-board budget cut of $1.5 trillion is aimed at the growth in spending over the next decade, not a reduction in those programs that are responsible for an unsustainable debt.
A Rasmussen Reports survey released on September 28 revealed that “Americans think that tax hikes are more likely than spending cuts in any deficit reduction deal that comes out of Congress and are more convinced than ever that any new tax monies will be spent on new government programs.”
Nearly two-thirds of American adults, 62%, have no confidence in Congress’s ability to actually reduce spending for the purpose of reducing the federal deficit. The latest poll on this topic represented an increase of four points over the previous one in February.
In an article posted on Military.com, a September 26 report released by the House Armed Services Committee warned that $465 billion in cuts to the defense budget over ten years would “transform a Superpower into a Regional Power” and return the military to funding levels of “the post-Vietnam Carter era of the late 1970s.”