Dav
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2009
- Messages
- 5,536
- Reaction score
- 1,813
- Location
- Virginia
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Libertarian - Right
You are making the assumption that military spending was the reason the Soviet Union fell, which is at best highly debatable. As a (believe it or not) capitalist, I think that the Soviets where doomed not by our military spending, but by the weaknesses inherent in their own system.
And Reagan believed that too, which is why he exploited those weaknesses.
Furthermore, no one is suggesting that some level of military spending is necessary, but to say that any level, no matter how high is ok(because it's spending we like) is patently false. I joined the navy in 1987, when Reagan was president, and waste, abuse and fraud in the military was at unreal. I remember seeing the orders for 250 dollar wrenches that where seriously inferior to ones you can get from Sears(in fact, we would have gotten alot of our own tools from Sears if allowed, at our own expense).
Look at it this way: we are deciding whether or not to go to war. In the process, do we calculate what the dollar cost of doing so would be, to help us decide? No, because - I have stated this about a hundred times now - fiscal concerns are not present when making national defense decisions, nor should they be.
Waste and inefficiency are obviously bad, but it would be unreasonable to solely blame Reagan for them.
And this is the problem with what you are doing. You are separating out the spending you support from the spending you like, and saying "hey look at only this part".
See above. Also realize that fiscal conservatism has basically nothing to do with defense spending for the reasons stated; in fact, most fiscal conservatives are strong national defense types. It has more to do with the 80% or so of the budget that isn't about defense spending.
Everybody who came before contributed to the conditions that allowed for a balanced budget. Bush the elder, who started the "peace dividend" concept probably contributed as much or more than Reagan himself, as did Clinton, and importantly, as did the congresses under all 3 of those presidents.
Okay, but that doesn't change the fact that if 1. the Cold War had not ended and allowed for huge decreases in military spending, or 2. Bush I and Clinton had spent as much as they still did without Reagan having ever cut domestic spending, then the surpluses would never have existed.