President Clinton reduced the workforce in the military by 400,000, which constituted about 80% of his government reinvention. These numbers do not include the number of active troops that were removed from service or anything such as that.
I think that was drastic, and ineffective, and I know countless civilian employees with more than 30 years experience who could dispute the wisdom of that, but that alone belongs in another discussion.
This was an efficient move...I cannot think of a more bloated federal program than the DOD.
I think your opinion in this is set, regardless of the circumstances. Some people have a mindset that a strong military is unnecessary unless the nation is under immediate threat, and that's a foolish way to meet it. It's like buying fire insurance while the house is burning.
I view the DOD as the most bloated because it is the largest government program
Not even close - Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are more than twice the size of defense spending. At least, we can cut defense spending here and there. Just TRY to cut one of these sacred cow programs - and they will eventually swallow the entire budget, at the rate they are growing. Defense, by comparison, has been shrinking more or less steadily since the Vietnam War as a percentage of GDP, or of federal outlays. How can you NOT see these programs as indicative of government bloat? They're growing so fast, most people believe they will either bankrupt the government or go broke.
and due to the large amounts of funding that congressman push for in their district. The DOD is the most widely-used medium that is utilized in the politics of pork...just take a look at some of the weapons that are being devloped or were developed in the past. Most of these are those Cold War relics that we hear about so often. Yet they keep being developed because congressmen want to keep them in order to keep money in their districts.
Defense programs aren't the only programs that the government wastes money on, to satisfy constituents - since they comprise only about 16 some percent of federal outlays. But they sure make for good news stories, don't they? What about the rest of the budget? No pork there? (What was in the news recently? Some study being made to examine the effects of pornography?).
One thing to remember - defense dollars also make for *jobs* - some of them, directly as employees. I think I'd rather money go to to people actually doing work, than just simply give it away.
I am not sure how under President Clinton, we could have made the nation safer...I mean there was just no serious threat to us. No one could have stopped 9/11 unless we had visions of the future.
I'm not convinced - we didn't know about the attack on the WTC - we DID know all about al-Quaeda. Supposedly, when the word reached Clinton about the embassy bombings in Africa, he shook his head, closed his eyes, and quietly hissed "bin Laden". You know, same guy who had tried to blow up the WTC the first time. The threat was credible then, and back when people thought we would at last get to spend the "peace dividend" - the moneys that ending the Cold War would free up - the pundits in DC were saying that a greater threat loomed in the form of terrorism, because the former Communist nations were strapped for cash and were losing brilliant minds to oil-rich Arab nations. I heard Brian Mulroney WARN the U.S. back in 1990, to beware of nuclear terrorism.
To say that had we spent more money on national security during peace is just wrong. After all, the GOP did not propose much more funding for homeland security or the DOD during Clinton's tenure. They instead wanted tax cuts...
They wanted a lot more than that - do you remember why they shut down the government? They wanted a balanced budget - and for Clinton to agree to it. Once Congress started submitting budgets with surplusses - amazingly - the economy began to improve.
But - you are right, they weren't proposing huge security changes, although they were always for stricter control on immigration. Even Gingrich referred to the movement of illegal immigration as an annual invasion, saying that if a hostile nation began depositing troops over our borders at the rate of 500,000 to a million a year, we'd consider that a threat. Remember?
so no matter what party was in the White House, 9/11 would have happened.
That doesn't follow, from what you mentioned. We don't know what four years of a Republican controlled government might have done (from 96-00, and Congress in control) once the attacks on the Cole, and the others, had happened. I personally don't think we would have ousted the Taliban or have begun a worldwide war on terrorism had Gore attained office.
Throughout the campaign, Bush's rhetoric came off as being anti-government spending...and in office, he has reacted completely opposite of that rhetoric.
Prove it. You'll always have a deficit following a recession - PROVE to me the budget shortfall is a consequence of bad spending, and not a bad economy. I'm not convinced. I *am* convinced that the dumbest thing to do during a recession is to *raise* taxes.
