From the Heritage Foundation

Defense priorities dangerously off-track

August 20, 2010 | By Bethany S. Murphy

With an exploding budget crisis, President Obama is proposing spending cuts, but not where you’d think. Has he decided to stop campaigning on behalf of Democratic Congressional members up for reelection at the taxpayers’ expense to the tune of two million dollars

 

? No. Has he decided not to spend $100,000 per teaching job

 

to bail out teachers’ unions? No. Instead, he has decided to cut defense funding and reclassify what constitutes defense spending. The National Security Strategy now declaring a focus on climate change, green energy, and women’s rights

 

.

Iran and North Korea are rapidly developing nuclear weapons capability while the Obama administration relies on more of the same sanctions that not only haven’t worked

 

, but that the administration itself continues to undermine

 

. We are still fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and facing the continued threat of terror attacks, all while President Obama nickel and diming American’s safety. In 2007 America spent near historic lows as a percent of GDP on defense. With this further reduction in defense spending, America is even more vulnerable to attack from rogue states, terrorist groups, and conventional military powers such as China and Russia.

The American people do not support this cut in defense spending, with 57 percent in a new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll

 

calling the possibility “unacceptable.” Kim Holmes

 

stated in a recent post on The Foundry:

“Defense is not the culprit of our budget woes, and it shouldn’t bear the brunt of the Obama Administration’s efforts to look fiscally responsible. This year, defense accounts for 19 percent of all federal spending, compared with 57 percent for our entitlement programs.”

At such a crucial turning point in America’s history, the first year and a half of President Obama’s administration has been devoted to passing “stimulus” packages that have not spurred the promised economic growth

 

, a government takeover of the healthcare industry opposed by a majority of voters

 

, and climate change legislation whose costs would far outweigh any benefits

 

all while the deficit continues to expand. When discussing two wars America is fighting in the Middle East our President consistently fails to mention the word “victory.” Our nation’s military deserve to have the resources and support necessary to protect the American people, not to have their own budget slashed to pay for pet projects coveted by the President’s base and other liberal interest groups.

In the newly published Solutions for America

 

The Heritage Foundation gives recommendations for a defense strategy that will actually defend the American people.

Other Heritage Work of Note

• On Human Events
   
  Heritage’s Rob Bluey outlines the new Heritage release Solutions for America
   
  , proving that conservatives have innovative solutions for getting our country back on the right track.
• Multinationals are faced with the following dilemma: Protect their bottom line and the jobs of their employees (many of whom are poor citizens of the developing world), or acquiesce to the demands of far-left organizations like GreenPeace? On FoxNews.com
   
  Heritage Research Fellow James Roberts discusses this issue, asking “How is it socially responsible to deny a livelihood to them and their families?”
• With America pulling out the last of its combat troops from Iraq, Heritage’s James Carafano
   
  outlines America’s victory beyond what most thought was possible three years ago, and offers advice for the future of US operations there. 
• The Department of Commerce has been boasting the funding of a $30 million coastal restoration project in the wake of the BP oil spill. There is one problem, as Heritage’s Rob Bluey
   
  points out: the project was approved almost four years ago and the funding approved months before the spill.
• In a piece on Forbes.com The Heritage Foundation’s Derek Scissors
   
  tracks down Chinese investments in order to get a more accurate picture of the economic climate there beyond the communist government’s “official” data.

In Other News

• Thanks to the surge strategy recommendations of John McCain (R-AZ) and its implementation by former President George Bush, Iraq is looking like a success story for one of the first times since the 2003 invasion. The last US combat troops have pulled out
   
  of the country two weeks ahead of their scheduled departure, and the US is on schedule to withdraw the remaining 50,000 troops by the December 31, 2011.
• Despite the administration’s claims of a recovering economy, jobless claims spiked
   
  this past month with 12,000 more Americans out of work and filing for unemployment benefits. 
• On the first anniversary of the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has again condemned
   
  the Scottish decision to free the convicted mass-murderer.
• The day before Iran opened its first nuclear power plant, it has tested a surface-to-surface missile
   
  as officials warn against any possible outside attack.
• Once one of America’s strongest economies, California will likely be forced to pay its state employees, who are the highest paid in the nation, using IOUs.
   
  California is one of the nation’s most heavily taxed states, and also has one of the highest rates of unemployment, currently at 12 percent.