Related: Tea Party Refuses to Take the Pledge
Buchanan was right, and it is why the hateful corporate media so distorted and maligned them.
"An alliance of opposites takes on Pentagon; Frank, Ron Paul make a case for cuts in the defense budget" by Farah Stockman, Globe Staff / November 21, 2010
WASHINGTON — Earlier this year, Representatives Barney Frank, the unabashedly liberal Democrat from Newton, and Ron Paul, an outspoken libertarian Republican from Texas, formed an unlikely alliance aimed at slashing the defense budget to trim the deficit.
Initially, their proposed 16 percent cut over a decade got a cold reception on Capitol Hill, where many Democrats and even the most fiscally conservative Republicans view the Pentagon budget as basically off-limits.
Related: The Two-Headed War Party
But now, with talk of deep cuts in Social Security and Medicare, and as a Tea Party-infused strain of the Republican party grows more powerful, their views are gaining traction.
A growing number of Republicans are saying that Pentagon cuts should be considered. And earlier this month, the White House debt commission issued draft recommendations that contained some ideas from a study commissioned by Frank and Paul, including dramatic reductions in the size of US military bases in Europe and canceling some big-ticket weapons systems.
“We incorporated a good bit of it,’’ said Alan K. Simpson, the former Republican senator from Wyoming who cochairs the debt commission, in a telephone interview. “If I read another article that tells me we can get this whole thing settled without touching Social Security, Medicaid, or the Pentagon, I’ll barf.’’
Many Republicans have traditionally demanded that military spending — which accounts for about 23 percent of the federal budget — be off-limits even as the deficit grew.
HOLY FRIKKIN' CRAP!
But the alliance between Frank and Paul, the father of Rand Paul, a Tea Party flag-bearer who was just elected senator from Kentucky, comes at a time when some newly elected Republicans view soaring military spending as part of the deficit problem.
“If you want to be serious about cutting the federal budget, we have to look at the Pentagon budget,’’ said Justin Amash, a newly elected libertarian-leaning Republican House member from Michigan who said he admires Ron Paul and met with him Tuesday.
I noticed the corporate media has really downplayed the significant Tea Party victory in the House.
Really makes me wonder about all those Republican ladies who lost their Senate races.
Chris Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, helped bring Frank and Paul together on the issue. He wrote an article earlier this year in which he called for significant defense cuts. Frank read the article and sent it to Ron Paul, with whom he had worked previously on attempts to decriminalize marijuana use and online gambling....
But when it came to auditing the Fed Barney abandoned Ron.
Phil Kerpen, a vice president at Americans for Prosperity, an organization that promotes free market policies that has worked with Tea Party groups around the country, said that he believes new members elected on a wave of sentiment against big government will be more skeptical of the military’s budget, which has climbed steadily since 1998 and has nearly doubled since 2000, to $675 billion this year.
I can NOT CONVEY to you the LEVEL of DISAPPOINTMENT that I have in DEMOCRATS right now!
WHERE WERE YOU the LAST TWO YEARS?!!
They should be ASHAMED that it takes TEA PARTY PEOPLE to ATTEMPT to SHUT DOWN the EMPIRE!
Rand Paul is among the newly elected Republicans who say cuts to the Pentagon’s budget should be considered. Although he is not as outspoken as his father on the matter, the senator-elect has called for an end to “nation-building’’ and downsizing the US military’s responsibilities in Europe, East Asia, and Afghanistan.
“National defense is the most important thing we do in Washington, but there’s still waste in the military budget,’’ Rand Paul told ABC’s “This Week’’ earlier this month. “You have to make it smaller. But you also then need to address how many wars are we going to be involved in? Are we going to be involved in every war all the time?’’
Will there ever be a day when we are not involved in a war?
These sentiments have alarmed some veterans in Congress on both sides of the aisle, who fear a budding coalition between the far right and the far left aimed at curtailing US military power around the world.
And it took a TEA PARTY CATALYST to DO IT!!
And look who is alarmed:
Last Monday, Arizona Senator John McCain, a Republican, told a foreign policy forum that he worries “a lot about the rise of protectionism and isolationism in the Republican Party,’’ citing Rand Paul’s remarks.
What a badge of honor for Rand to wear!
Senator Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, warned in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal that a coalition of antiwar Democrats and isolationist Republicans would present “the single greatest political threat to the success of the war effort in Afghanistan.’’
Wow, those two joined at the hip even in the newspaper.
And JOE KNOWS the ZIONIST AGENDA if ANYONE DOES!
It remains unclear how many of the new freshmen will ally themselves with the libertarian wing of the GOP. Even Frank and Ron Paul say it will be an uphill battle to gain support for large defense cuts.
To me it is quite clear.
Boner will act just as Pelosi did:
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been trying to pressure some of those Democrats to switch their votes.... California Democratic Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey says the White House has also threatened to pull support from freshman anti-war Democrats who vote no on the bill.... In the crosshairs of the big guns at the White House and on Capitol Hill are anti-war freshmen legislators and the movement to hold those responsible for torture accountable.
In funding the wars, the White House has been able to rely on strong GOP support to marginalize the anti-war Democrats who have pledged to vote against continued funding (as 51 Democrats did in May when the supplemental was first voted on). But the White House is running into trouble now because of Republican opposition to some of the provisions added to the bill (and one removed), meaning the pro-war Democrats actually need a fair number of anti-war Democrats to switch sides. In short, the current battle will clearly reveal exactly how many Democrats actually oppose these wars. And, according to reports, the White House and Democratic Leadership have the gloves off in the fight:
Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California, a leader of the antiwar Democrats, said the White House is threatening to withdraw support from freshmen who oppose the bill, saying “you’ll never hear from us again.” She said the House leadership also is targeting the freshmen. “It’s really hard for the freshmen,” she said. “Nancy’s pretty powerful.”
Not as much now.
“Even with new people coming in, the likelihood of us getting ahold of this budget problem is small,’’ said Ron Paul in an interview. He said that he and his son have not discussed the issue....
If nothing else Ron is a realist.
Related: War Looter's Wednesday: Immigrants Matter Most
What gives, Barney?
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he can eke out savings of about 2 percent of the Pentagon budget each year, but he has argued the Pentagon should keep that money for other priorities, and that its budget should still grow at a rate of about 1 percent a year.
That and the bank bailouts are devouring our budget, America.
To offer specifics on how defense spending can be trimmed, Frank and Paul set up what they called the Sustainable Defense Task Force, a group of specialists led by the Project on Defense Alternatives, a Cambridge, Mass.-based think tank focused on reducing military spending.
The task force released a report in June that identified about $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade out of a projected $6 trillion in spending during that period. It called for cutting expensive weapons systems with a history of problems, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, and the Osprey aircraft, and for a 26 percent reduction in personnel at US military bases in Europe and Asia.
“If England and Germany feel threatened, they can increase their own militaries,’’ said Frank, who noted that both European allies are cutting their own defense budgets.
Frank and Ron Paul also circulated a letter to the White House debt commission urging it to consider military cuts. Of 57 lawmakers who signed, Ron Paul was the only Republican.
But since then, others have shown more interest.
Senator Tom Coburn, a conservative Oklahoma Republican who sits on the debt commission, has proposed freezing military spending until the Pentagon is audited....
Oh, that would be a GREAT IDEA!
See: Following Zakheim and Pentagon trillions to Israel and 9-11
And imagine, an ICKY Republican is calling for an audit.
I want to know WHERE have the DEMOCRATS BEEN these LAST FOUR YEARS?
But some of their recommendations were dead on arrival. For instance, the task force suggested curbing the planned modernization of the US nuclear arsenal, but the Obama administration is reportedly planning to add $4 billion to such efforts in an attempt to gain the support of Senator Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican who advocates boosting the nuclear arsenal, for a key arms treaty with Russia.
Actually, he has added a LOT MORE than THAT!
"Republicans have already pressured the administration to pledge $80 billion over the next decade for improvements to the remaining US nuclear arsenal, along with $180 billion more for missiles and other delivery systems that carry warheads. In recent days, the administration has thrown in a sweetener: a promise of $4 billion more if the GOP ratifies the treaty in the lame-duck session"
That sweetener is making me sour.
Nonetheless, Erskine B. Bowles, the Democratic cochair of the debt commission, credited Frank and Paul with helping to spark a useful debate in the country.
“Everything changes as people become more aware,’’ he said. “What was possible three weeks ago is different than what is possible today, and what will be possible two weeks from now.’’
Those comments make me think of bloggers and 9/11 Truth.
--more--"
