The Military Industrial Complex or a balanced budget?

A recent conversation amongst friends and total strangers recently revealed a couple of interesting points in terms of budget deficit reduction.

Here are the generic, stereotype laden talking points (generally dependent on political leanings):

1) We need to cut spending from the military, the evil empire spends well over every other country in the world combined!

Okay so not everyone is so hyperbolic with their wrongly cited numbers but you get the idea.

2) We need to cut the welfare programs that are a burden to society and doing nothing more than spreading around hard earned wealth and enslaving the working class.

Everyone else talking about budget cuts is really just noise right? I mean, sure, we can cut the endowment for the Arts because they offer little value and promote divisive materials, sometimes. Sure we can cut the Department of Education, because honestly, I dare you to go read their website and tell me in concrete terms what they actually provide. I have read it, and personally I don't get it. As a person that has been formally enrolled in some sort of school for 24 of the last 27 years of my life I get it. Education is important and all that jazz but really how much value does the Dept. of Education really bring to the table when a huge amount of our spending is being done at "for profit" educational institutions?

To be succinct, the current budget of our fine government qualifies about 30 % of our spending as "non-mandatory", or discretionary. To include the FBI and the Army......yes something is wrong with this picture.

So back to the topic at hand, budget cuts. Our current fiscal situation is worsening at an exponential rate. Roughly 10 years ago in order to balance our budget we needed to cut spending by about 10% and we would have been back in good shape. Roughly 4 years ago that number was around 30%. At that point we could have just lopped off the discretionary spending completely and have fixed the problem. Now, since as a country we refuse to demand that our politicians make decisions that fix the problem we are now in need of a 50% budget cut in order to come back into balance. Yes, as noted in the other conversation, Rand Paul was right about the numbers.

So here we are, we need to start skinning the fat rabbit or we'll never make it out of the hole. So what is the fat rabbit, and how do we skin it. Courtesy of Wikipedia, and claiming to be based on CBO data, behold the fat rabbit.

So, where do we start. Clearly we have four sections that need to be put on a diet to balance our budget. So, when making large cuts wouldn't it make sense to just cut 13% across each of the sections and call it good? Seems easy enough right? Sure, except enter political stereotypes.

Republicans can't cut the military industrial complex because of their mired corporate interests.

Democrats can't cut Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid spending because of their personal care of those that are unable to care for themselves.

Enter people like me, who are unaffiliated. I think the budget cuts are a simple solution. Note, I don't believe that because it's a simple solution that it won't be without huge impacts, but I don't think it's hard to look at a pie graph and realize where I need to start making cuts.

Will people have to work longer without collecting their Social Security? Yes. Does that mean people like my father, wouldn't be able to retire from a fairly cushy salary, receive full Social Security benefits, and work at a golf course in order to "stay busy" during his retirement? Yes. Do those sort of cuts hurt in the near term? Yes. Are they insurmountable in the long term? No. People will adjust because they have no other choice. All we need to do is convince them they are sacrificing for the betterment of the country and their progeny and they'll do it. How do we convince them it's for their progeny and not for politicians, lobbyists, greedy corporations and everyone else that is evil in budget talks? Well, you cut their budgets as well.

So, enter cuts to the military industrial complex as well. Do they hurt the average citizens as well? Most definitely. The Department of Defense employs a whole bunch of people, in a whole bunch of locations not called Washington D.C. In fact, in some places the DoD employs up to 15% of the entire state's working population. So will those cuts hurt? Most definitely. Let's not fall into the rhetorical trap of social program cuts hurting the "little people" and defense cuts only hurting the greedy corporatists.

The deal is simple, cuts need to be made. 50% of our budget needs to be cut, there are no two ways around that mathematical truth.

How do you do that and FAIRLY affect all the people in this country that weren't responsible for any of the budget mess to begin with.

Well, my proposal is a 1:1 coupling of cuts from each of the parts of the pie chart. That way, everyone gets cuts from where they think is deserving of being cut. Some will say, "But we need to cut more from the military because we spend a disproportionate amount on military spending compared to other countries." This is true, but when you compare spending as a percentage of GDP we're not even near number one anymore. So, take our spending with a bit of what it's going towards and we'll understand why our spending is so high. How much of the useful things in our country's GDP right now are a direct result of military spending through private contracting vehicles? How about any dollar spent, earned, or otherwise transacted on the Internet?

We spend a lot on research, and a lot of the great scientific and technological advances in our nation's great history have come at the heels of Industrial Complex spending from our military. It's not all evil, nor are we really necessarily spending "too much" in that arena. It's really a matter of perspective on where we should be spending the money.

I don't "lean left" politically so I'm not bound to the stereotype of caring for people, so I'm fine cutting social programs like Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid.

I don't "lean right" politically so I'm not bound to support military spending. I think that defense is the number one priority of our federal government, so I don't see it as much as "over spending", at least not any more proportional than money that is wasted in every other branch of government spending.

So, from where I sit, here in the middle. I say cut them both, and we'll adapt and overcome as a country. 50% of cuts is going to hurt no matter how you slice it. With so many differing opinions about where we should be spending the money, the least we could do is share the burden collectively right?

It's sort of "redistribution of wealth" but in reverse. Everyone loses, which ultimately makes it so everyone wins.

Theocracy

Let's imagine a worst-case scenario where the United States, through internal factors, disintegrates and splinters.  As a result, different states and regions band together to form new nations.  One natural fit would be for the people of the "Mormon Belt" to form an alliance and create a new nation, let's call it Deseret.

Now imagine a choice between creating a democracy, similar to the one established in the Constitution, and a theocracy where the prophet was the head of state, similar to the institutions created by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.  Which would you choose?  I'm not sure that is such an easy choice for Mormons.

Now, how does this effect your views on the revolutions taking place in the Middle East?  There is considerable hand-wringing by conservatives, given voice by Fox News, and hilariously parodied by Glenn Beck, that the revolutions are distinctly bad because Islamists may take power.  After all, Palestinians elected Hamas and in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood has some amount of popularity and political organization.  It is certainly not a perfect analogy, but how critical can we be of Muslims choosing to create a theocracy when we, as Mormons, would likely be inclined to do the same?

Utah State Legislature Fails Constitutional Interpretation

I got a really nice laugh this morning on the way to work.  KUER, the local NPR radio station, ran a story about the Utah legislature defining rules for how it sues the federal government.  One of the sections of this legislation is a list of powers given to the federal government.  Rep. Ivory explained the need for this list by stating:

I thought it was fascinating. There oughta be a list out there that just lists the enumerated powers. There's just not. There's just not, and we talk so often about the government being one of enumerated powers, but there's no list anywhere.

There oughta be a list?  Uh, I believe that "list" is the United States Constitution itself.  In fact, within the Constitution there is an actual section known as the Enumerated Powers.  Is Rep. Ivory too lazy to read the Constitution and therefore needs a nice, simplistic list for him to understand?  Or is it possible that Rep. Ivory doesn't like how the Constitution is written and would like to re-write it in a way a bit more pleasing to himself?  Is there something wrong with the Constitution that he believes needs fixing or clarifying?

The bill also requires the state to "judge federal action against that list, using the meaning of the provision at the time it was drafted - as far back as 1789."  So the touchstone for all Constitutional interpretation by the Utah state legislature is now not the Constitution itself, but a hackneyed, superficial, and biased list of enumerated powers as interpreted by Rep. Ivory?  Sounds like a real logical step forward.
 
And I've laid out before why it is inane to try to interpret the Constitution based on "original intent" -- because there was no single original intent and because it doesn't make sense to try to overlay 18th century understanding on an infinitely more complex 21st century world and because the Constitution was intentionally written broadly to adapt to changing circumstances -- but now the Utah legislature has made state law.

We now have further evidence that the Tea Party extremists who profess such love and fealty to the Constitution neither understand it nor respect it.

Elder Oaks and Preserving Religious Freedom

There is considerable discussion out there about Elder Oak's talk given at Chapman University about religious freedom.  It is the sort of message that leaves me torn and restless.  As a deeply religious person I agree completely with the general sentiment expressed in his conclusion:

We must never see the day when the public square is not open to religious ideas and religious persons. The religious community must unite to be sure we are not coerced or deterred into silence by the kinds of intimidation or threatening rhetoric that are being experienced. Whether or not such actions are anti-religious, they are surely anti-democratic and should be condemned by all who are interested in democratic government. There should be room for all good-faith views in the public square, be they secular, religious, or a mixture of the two. When expressed sincerely and without sanctimoniousness, the religious voice adds much to the text and tenor of public debate.

No one should ever feel embarrassed or intimidated for expressing strong religious beliefs in the public square, and I agree that religions have much good to offer public policy on a more abstract level.  But at the same time, I disagree with Elder Oaks that religious expression should be given a special, elevated status in such discussions:

Another important current debate over religious freedom concerns whether the guarantee of free exercise of religion gives one who acts on religious grounds greater protection against government prohibitions than are already guaranteed to everyone by other provisions of the constitution, like freedom of speech. I, of course, maintain that unless religious freedom has a unique position we erase the significance of this separate provision in the First Amendment. Treating actions based on religious belief the same as actions based on other systems of belief is not enough to satisfy the special guarantee of religious freedom in the United States Constitution. Religion must preserve its preferred status in our pluralistic society in order to make its unique contribution—its recognition and commitment to values that transcend the secular world.

This seems to me to go a step too far.  In a democracy all voices and viewpoints should be weighted equally, with none given a preferred status, just as each person's vote is given equal weight and none are given special status (unless you are on the Supreme Court, of course).  Giving preference to religious expression seems to contain a couple major problems.

First, religions simply do not agree with one another on most important issues.  There is not a monolithic religious point of view.  Some religions support gay marriage, some don't.  Some religions are overtly political, some aren't.  Some religions are incredibly strict and didactic about public laws and discourse, others are more lenient and hands-off.  To say that religious expression should be preferred is to throw open the doors to a cacophonous mess.

Which leads to the second point, which is that religions are notoriously antagonistic towards one another and I don't think Mormons, in particular, would be too pleased with where that might end up.  For doctrinal and evangelical reasons (meaning we are both idiosyncratic in our beliefs and aggressive in proselytizing them), we aren't exactly the most highly-regarded amongst the Protestant religions that dominate the country.  Giving preferred status to these may lead to more stringent restrictions to our religious freedom than any perceived restrictions some may feel now.

Finally, unless our government is established based on facts and reason, the wanton baseless emotions of a few could easily overrun the system.  Public officials have to be accountable and grounded to objective standards.  Religion can be beautiful and a force for good, but it is based on belief and faith and other deeply personal spiritual experiences that cannot be extrapolated to the many for purposes of establishing public policy.  Furthermore, as noted above, there are so many different flavors of religion that seeking to find some universal kernel on which to base public policy would be near impossible.

Now, I agree with Elder Oaks that our society is becoming more and more comfortable with moral relativism, and that this is a bad thing:

The preservation of religious freedom in our nation depends on the value we attach to the teachings of right and wrong in our churches, synagogues and mosques. It is faith in God—however defined—that translates these religious teachings into the moral behavior that benefits the nation. As fewer and fewer citizens believe in God and in the existence of the moral absolutes taught by religious leaders, the importance of religious freedom to the totality of our citizens is diminished.  We stand to lose that freedom if many believe that religious leaders, who preach right and wrong, make no unique contribution to society and therefore should have no special legal protection.

I disagree with the conclusion, however, that the remedy is found in a preferred position in the public square.  If religion is losing its influence in society, perhaps it is as much or more because we are doing a poor job defining what good we have to offer society than of being squeezed out by the forces of a some soft conspiracy.  We should focus more on humbly serving individuals and selling our message through personal testimony, than acting as a perceived victim on the public stage.

As to whether there really is a substantial erosion of our right to practice religion, as opposed to an erosion of our reputations as religious, I don't know.  Elder Oaks offers some examples that I plan on looking into, but I confess to having no reason to believe that my right to practice my religion is diminishing or will diminish in the near future.  I feel no threat to my First Amendment rights, and any threat to my standing in the public eye I will accept as my own failing and try to do better in the future.  To the extent that there is an erosion of my First Amendment rights, I stand with Elder Oaks in fighting against it.

Democracy in Egypt and the Middle East

What you are hearing from Washington insiders regarding the uprising, or revolution, in Egypt is that Pres. Obama is in a very tough spot.  Republicans are surprisingly supportive of this view and are standing behind the president as he tries to figure out what to do.  It's tricky because we've been supporting, through billions of dollars in aid, Mubarak for decades, this despite the fact that he is an undemocratic autocrat who excludes his people from legitimate public debate and involvement.  But the US is okay with that because he has been friendly with Israel, he has been moderate in keeping fundamentalism at bay in Egypt, and the country has been stable under his rule.

This is the classic foreign policy realism point of view.  Realism is not concerned with right or wrong, moral or immoral, and the like.  Realism is concerned with who has power and how does that effect me?  The paramount concern for a foreign policy realist is one's own security and self-interest.  From the realist's point of view, Mubarak has been perfectly acceptable.  The idea of a revolution in Egypt, with the possibility of chaos or fundamentalism taking hold as a counter-weight to the possibility of real democracy taking hold, is a risk probably not worth taking.  So the establishment is treading very carefully, not really sure what to do about it.  Of course a stable democracy is the very best thing for America's self-interest, but the cost/benefit analysis is tricky.  This is why the Obama administration is making wishy-washy statements and being blamed for being one step behind the situation, and why Republicans are supportive.

And it's all wrong.

America's self-interest is second to the inherent right of all people to live under conditions of democracy, peace, and human rights.  This is called foreign policy idealism, that our foreign policy is led by our internal philosophies, and America was founded on the ideals of freedom, democracy, and human rights (well, we got there eventually, anyway).  These are, for the most part, peaceful demonstrations of people who are throwing off an oppressive dictator and they should have nothing but our full support, and should have had it from the beginning.  The same is true of the recent protests in Tunisia, Iran, Jordan, and Yemen.

"Stability in lieu of freedom," as a recent Wall Street Journal editorial stated, was the long-time realist approach to the Middle East, but that is changing now.  Even the realists are seeing some value in a democratic and free Egypt.  In this case, the realists are on the wrong side of history, flat-footed as they realize that the old conventional wisdom that democracy could not take root naturally in the Middle East was nothing more than haughty American exceptionalism at its worst.  The Bush Doctrine of spreading democracy through war has been trounced and we now realize, more than ever before, that peaceful democracy and Islam are not mutually exclusive.

I'm not saying that Pres. Obama's famous Cairo Speech prompted this organic revolution, but as has been noted, the president put himself in the best position possible to support it when he said these words: "America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them.  And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments -- provided they govern with respect for all their people."

Pres. Obama has not always backed those words with concrete actions, and he has been slow to react correctly to the political upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa, but he at least staked out the correct amount of foreign policy idealism and gave America the flexibility to reject a stable Middle Eastern dictator when the people chose to overthrow him.

For too long America has supported dictators in the Middle East, even Saddam Hussein at one time, in the name of foreign policy realism, and it has left us weaker and more vulnerable, and morally bankrupt.  It is now time for America to support democracy and human-rights in the name of foreign policy idealism.  Next stop, by the way, must be Palestine.