rssDefense Spending As Stimulus, Part Trois
Tuesday, February 03, 2009 at 12:09 pm
- 3 Comments
People always talk about The Washington Post’s Bob Kagan as the smart Kagan child, but even if his brother wasn’t Fred Kagan, this column would still be pretty egregious. It begins with the false premise that President Obama is going to cut defense spending and then proceeds to argue that defense spending is stimulative.
On the stimulus question, he’s not wrong. Defense spending indeed stimulates the economy. It’s just curious how all of these old and wheezing defense platforms of dubious/debatable utility to national security are suddenly presented as important parts of economic recovery — and presented outside the context about what other, perhaps-less-expensive measures might be more stimulative. To be fair, Kagan doesn’t advocate for any particular defense program, but that just makes the argument a bit generic and tacked-on.
But all of this proceeds from the incorrect premise that Obama is going to cut defense spending. In fact, as CQ’s Josh Rogin reported yesterday, Obama’s Office of Management and Budget is capping the ceiling on non-war-related spending at eight percent above the fiscal 2009 budget. It’s possible that Obama will ask the Pentagon to rein in its projections for future defense spending. But those are projections and not actual spending. A simple Google search would have spared us Kagan’s column — presuming, that is, it was written in good faith.
Update: I should have noted that Glenn Greenwald hit this before I did.
Late Update: CQ’s numbers were a bit off the first time around, so Josh Rogin’s story is updated. The ceiling OMB placed on the fiscal 2010 defense budget is still $14 billion higher than the fiscal 2009 one.
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3 Comments
Comment posted February 5, 2009 @ 8:58 am
As a retired AF officer who has served/fought in action against everything from large enemy AF's to terrorists to flying cover for peacekeeping as well as the UN, I must waive the TOTAL BS flag! F-22s are as necessary as nuke subs, HUMVEEs and bullet-proof vests. Stop engaging in “THIS WAR” myopia!! We MUST INVEST in modernizing all of the military to defend us against danger in the entire spectrum of potential conflict. The F-22 and its brother the F-35 will deter and if necessary win a conventional conflict and prevent those conflicts from going nuclear. Your anti-defense-jobs argument is BS too. The workers are exercising their 1st Amendment right to petition the government . Our nation's AF needs 60-200 more F-22s and over 30 campaign studies validate that requirement. Spew your anti-military venom if you will, but the uniformed military needs the new equipment (AF and Navy) since they sacrificed much of that modernization to fight the current 2 wars. Let's not repeat the huge mistakes of the post-VietNam era.
Comment posted May 15, 2009 @ 9:18 am
Bottom line, if you want students to study science, you have to create jobs for them after graduation. Defense spending creates very good jobs, right here in the U.S. , for students of all sorts of scientific backgrounds. As a plus, defense spending creates manufacturing jobs that are less likely to be outsourced due to security issues. (I work for a major aerospace/ defense contractor, and i can tell you that ALL of the subcontractors on my program are small, U.S. manufacturing companies.) Finally, ModerateWarrior is dead on. Just my 2 cents.
Comment posted May 15, 2009 @ 4:18 pm
Bottom line, if you want students to study science, you have to create jobs for them after graduation. Defense spending creates very good jobs, right here in the U.S. , for students of all sorts of scientific backgrounds. As a plus, defense spending creates manufacturing jobs that are less likely to be outsourced due to security issues. (I work for a major aerospace/ defense contractor, and i can tell you that ALL of the subcontractors on my program are small, U.S. manufacturing companies.) Finally, ModerateWarrior is dead on. Just my 2 cents.
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