In the GOP’s Establishment v. Tea Party battle, this round, at least, looks like it was won by the outsiders. And, so it seems, the Establishment looks to be fine with that.
After making a big political show last week of storming out of Vice President Joe Biden’s fiscal negotiations over taxes, Republican Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) appears to have made a decision: cutting the Pentagon’s budget is less sacrosanct to conservatives than raising revenue. Cantor has positioned himself firmly against tax increases while using the Tea Party’s focus on spending cuts as political cover to give the appearance that he’s willing to give ground on Defense spending. “Everything is on the table,” Cantor said when referring to Defense cuts, implicitly endorsing the position of Tea Party-backed freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) who says we “can’t afford” this Republican “sacred cow” anymore.
Not so fast, my friends. Cantor is trying to have his cake and eat it, too, stipulating that any reduction in Defense “belongs in the appropriations process.” This handful of words goes a long way when you parse them. In short, there are two major problems with this caveat:
First, and in English, that means Cantor is willing to give a nod towards reducing Defense spending on paper and in the press, but knows full-well that Republicans in charge of the House Armed Services and Appropriations Committees can fight to reinstate cut programs on a case-by-case basis at a later date.
Second, fixing the problem in the appropriations process focuses solely on weapons systems, which are, after all, the things that get appropriated. But weapons systems are hardly the lone driver of the Defense budget’s exorbitant rise over the last decade. As I’ve detailed in a PPI Policy Memo, personnel costs are the somewhat hidden story of Defense spending, even though Secretary Gates has stated that military health-care costs are “eating the Defense Department alive.”
A serious reduction in the Pentagon’s budget would agree to both reducing personnel costs and making any weapons systems reductions part of a legally-enforceable deal between the parties. Cantor doesn’t seems prepared to do either.
Worse, some Democrats are falling for Cantor’s slight-of-hand. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) seemed ready to embrace Cantor’s apparent willingness to talk defense cuts, saying, “If we can get $100 billion from reducing unneeded military spending, that’s better than $100 billion in taxation.” The risk is that in Frank’s haste to cut military spending, he is signing up for a deal that the Republicans have no intention of keeping.
We must scrutinize the Defense budget as part of a realistic national deficit reduction plan. But let’s do it the right way: reductions in Defense spending must come from personnel as well as weapons, and be enforceable over the long term. Eric Cantor is disingenuous about serious cuts, and Barney Frank seems too eager to reduce military spending to get a realistic deal from Republicans.
Photo Credit: drp