I'm all for cutting defense as part of a broader plan to balance the budget. However, we could eliminate the entire defense budget, and we would still have a substantial deficit. It's about 15 percent of the budget. The rest of it is entitlements and a gaggle of smaller programs, most of which are on questionable constitutional grounds.
No, they wouldn't. First, large numbers of Democrats don't want to significantly cut defense in the first place. Second, those who do only want to cut it to spend more on social programs. People like AOC and Bernie Sanders would cut the military, but they'd want that money to boost health spending or as seed money for the Green New Deal. You're far more likely to get the relatively defense-oriented Democrats to go along with entitlement reform than the Pentagon-haters.
Defense spending is a factor in keeping Democrats in the driver's seat on social spending, but the GOP's insatiable appetite for tax cuts is a bigger factor. All Democrats have to do to get the GOP to cave on social spending is to endanger a tax cut or threaten a tax hike. We'll do anything to avoid that, and the Democrats will squeeze us on that every time. That has been their rap since the Reagan Administration.
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Agree x 1
Last edited: Aug 23, 2020