Gautam wrote: > >>I could point out that Krugman has become such a loon that he has written >>in the New York Times his belief that Enron is more important than >>September 11th. >>
You don't like Krugman? How about this guy from the Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23789-2002Feb4.html Doug Doug, how precisely do you expect to pay for the war we're currently fighting? We can't, oddly enough, do it without increasing the defense budget. Wars cost money. It's one of the less important reasons that you try to avoid fighting them. Yes, there are lots of people who think the Administration is spending too much on the military. Congratulations, you've proven that to me. There are lots of people who think that we shouldn't have toppled the Taliban too. So what? There are lots of people who believe every damn fool thing you can imagine. Many of them are journalists. In this particular case, given how overwhelmingly leftist the American media is, there is no defense spending increase that wouldn't draw criticism from lots of the media. The only even vaguely conservative source you cited was the Cato Institute - a libertarian institute that opposes almost all defense spending on principle. Cato thinks our response to Afghanistan should have been to pretty much withdraw from world politics. If you don't think that, then you might, just might, disagree with their assessments of the defense budget. There are lots of people who think it's spending the right amount. The fact that a bunch of columnists who can't tell a squad from a squadron are hysterically denouncing the increases is not terribly likely to convince me. The Administration is proposing a $379B defense budget. The total budget is, I believe, approximately $2.2 Trillion. The total GDP is in the range of $10 Trillion. Which means we are spending less than 4% of the GDP on defense. In the 1980s we routinely spent more than 6%. Given that 3000 Americans just got killed by agents of a hostile country - a striking demonstration of the violent potential of the modern world - spending more doesn't seem like a bad idea. Now, I don't necessarily agree with all of their priorities either. But given the difficulties the military has had in recruiting, an across-the-board pay raise doesn't seem like a bad idea. Given the rapid pace of change in military technology, spending a lot on R&D seems like a good idea. Given the incredible tempo of military operations in the last 15 years - one likely to increase - spending a substantial amount on procurement seems like a good idea. And gee, you know, when we ask American soldiers to fly off on a moment's notice to every God-forsaken corner of the planet to get shot at over and over and over again, it doesn't exactly seem unfair to pay them a bit more. Given the threat of rising Chinese power (among other things) spending a lot on systems designed to fight conventional wars seems like a good idea. Given that we're in the middle of a recession, doing it with deficit spending seems rather like a good idea. Which one of those particular facts do you not agree with? Exactly how do you think the US is going to maintain its current military dominance without spending money? Oddly enough it isn't free. The current defense budget is not - compared to the size of the economy, the only relevant figure - even that large. If you think it's too big, instead of just reflexively condemning all military increases, you might want to point out what, exactly, you disagree with. Then maybe I can debate with you. But saying that you think a hysterical screed like Krugman's is exactly right makes me think that it's not the defense increase you oppose - it's the Administration in anything that it does. Gautam
