Off-Topic: There are bigger issues to address

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	Name:	MartiniMan -
	Subject:	There are bigger issues to address
	Date:	11/16/2010 3:29:54 PM

I believe in a strong national defense and while I recognize that dollars don't necessarily equate to quality of our national defense I have seen the negative impact of cutting defense spending. Case in point is what Carter did to the military in the 1970's. Second case in point was Clinton reaping the end of Cold War windfall but not being smart about the change from a symmetric to an asymmetric enemy.

But as we speak there have been tons of spending cuts in the military budgets but in my view in all the wrong places. For example I think cutting missile defense budgets is the wrong way to go, particularly with rogue states like N. Korea and Iran having or trying to get nukes and developing long range missile capabilities. In the current budget, core defense spending is slated to be 3.3% of GDP by 2014 while today it's 3.8%. That is already a hefty cut (I say "cut" partially tongue in cheek because this reflects a modest growth in real dollars at about the rate of inflation) from a President that has increased our average annual deficit from $161B during the Bush years to over $1T in his first two years. He proposes to double the size of the the Department of Education, USEPA has doubled in the number of employees in just two years.

I guess my view is we may need to actually increase funding in certain areas related to defense.