As we begin to consider how best to rebuild the nation’s physical, human, and knowledge capital, we need to think about the appropriate level of military spending. There’s a nice piece by Jim Arkedis of the Progressive Policy Institute on New Congress and Military Spending: This is Going to Be Fun. Jim writes:
we could be approaching the tipping point on fiscal responsibility and military spending. Mainstream Republicans, who want to shovel money towards the Pentagon that even it doesn’t want, are beginning to swim upstream more and more.
It certainly would be interesting if military spending turned out to be a wedge issue for the Republicans.
It seems obvious to me that if the state of the economy is the only concern, then the only defense spending cuts that would be helpful would be those associated with maintaining troops and operations on foreign soil, particularly those operations that destroy equipment, consume large amounts of fuel, and harm our people.
If domestic military operations contribute significantly to our military being the largest user of energy of any U.S. organization, then undertaking efficiency measures would also make sense.
Other cuts that eliminate the jobs of military personnel would be harmful to a fragile economy.