RonP The Budget Slayer

Why doesn't he...

just eliminate Homeland Security and redistribute those functions to the military/FBI/CIA? Get rid of two carrier groups in toto and a lot of honest 'defence' can be paid for. And why only a freeze on the Pentagon? In fact why not just an across the board cut on everything? I can never understand why this approach isn't pursued by anyone-well, I do but....:hmm:
 
You wrote, "And why only a freeze on the Pentagon..."

If you look at the first list Discretionary Spending, you'll see many of the remaining cab depts are frozen, some back to 2006 numbers and in the case of the EPA, 30% off 2006.
 
But Homeland Security...

is just a fancy way of saying defence from attack-albeit a murky sort of attack. In any case money could be shifted from overseas projection of power (or the illusion thereof) to domestic defence and policing, the actual department carrying it out doesn't matter much. The point being that since 9/11 the issue of 'defence' is now primarily and inseparably bound up with depriving terrorists of easy targets and easy paths to them. It's hard to see how maintaining a huge blue watr navy is going to acheive this except in the alternate universe of the national security state types and the contractors supported by them.
 
When you look at the problems this country faces and look at all the candidates running for president it's clear that, with the possible exception of Gary Johnson, Ron Paul is the only serious candidate.
 
Serious, but not....

taken seriously.

He is just too much for the electorate to swallow whole and complete and a partial Ron Paul is as good as no Ron Paul at all (excuse the rhyme:shock:) Once his ideology gets watered down what are you really left with? Possibly the worst, not the best, of both worlds. To go his way asks a voter to set aside very real concerns over some issues in order to realize the advantage on others. And I can see this working both ways, that is, a liberal may be 100% behind his foreign policy but have very grave concerns over his stand on 'state's rights'. Conversely a conservative may be with him on everything but his foreign policy. The notion that in his mind, and the minds of his supporters, it all goes together logically is irrelevant. I like his take on a number of things but am implacably opposed to his staunch state's rights stand. The fact that I could be wrong on that is beside the point from an electoral point of view. Likewise a national security leaning sort of voter can't reconcile themselves to his apparent military isolationism or disengagement or whatever the proper description is.:hmm:
 
"States rights" has so many negative connotations and its not really an accurate term. Enumerated powers would be a more accurate description. Nobody likes to argue against that because it puts them against the plain language of the Constitution.
 
It looks like they rolled a lot of them back to 2006 levels. I know that's not a "take 10% off everything in the store" across the board price slash, but it sure does chop-chop-chop.
 
I suppose if you put the Defense back into the Dept of Defense and folded up the Tent of Empire, it would makse sense that a Dept of Defense that really is about Defense would be the logical place for Homeland Security effort.
 
Well, the plain language creates...

some Gestalt problems-where you see enumerated powers (a term not actually used in the text) I may see a general (as in broad and broadly undefined) welfare clause and a proper and necessary clause.
That language is only as plain or opaque, I believe, as the eye of the beholder deems it. It is not a violation of logic that the powers can be 'enumerated' and still not be exhaustive-especially in view of the aforementioned general welfare clause'
But this is not really a disputable issue, because one's approach to the language is going to be colored indelibly by prejudice in one direction or another. History would suggest that the 'enumerated powers' are not considered exhaustive of the powers of Congress-or more to the point the 'general welfare' clause, the 'proper and necessary' clause and even the 'commerce' clause have been used to define the limits as much or more than the enumerations in Section 8
 
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