by Fox News is reporting that Barack Obama has asked the military’s Joint Chiefs for Staff to cut the defense budget by 10% for FY 2010. This is an unfortunate “request” given the massive expenditures being planned in virtually every other area of the budget.
These proposed cuts are not a good idea for national security purposes, needless to say. Neither are they good from an economic stimulus perspective. Some economists, including Martin Feldstein of Harvard, say that defense spending is one of the best ways to ensure that stimulus money hits the economy quickly.
Writing about the trillion dollar stimulus package, Jim Manzi says:
the net effect of this bill is to shift the distribution of U.S. government spending as a whole away from defense and public safety and toward social programs: for good or ill
This is a Democratic dream and, as I predicted, the inevitable result of voters being gullible enough to vote the entitlement party into control of the presidency and both houses of Congress.
It’s time to get on the phones and blow the dust off of your typewriters, folks. Contact your congressman and senator and make sure they know that you want the defense budget to, at a minimum, remain static when adjusted for inflation.
