Looming Fiscal Crisis; the U.S. National Debt

Congressional conservatives demanded for a more drastic reduction in government spending then their GOP leaders have proposed. Many of these new conservatives were swept into office in Novembers mid-term election and have vowed to rein in the ballooning federal deficit.

Members of the conservative Republican study group want the party to keep its promise to reduce $100 billion dollars of non-defense spending from the budget. Spending would largely target all areas of the federal budget, exempting the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security.

The fatal flaw in this approach is that you can't reduce federal spending without tackling defense spending, which is akin to sacrilege to the Republican Party. Having spent over twenty seven years in the military, the Defense Department has spent billions on weapons systems only to see them canceled. Cost overruns are routine on weapons systems that never meet its expected costs.

This past summer the Washington Post ran a three day expose on U.S. intelligence, and since 9/11, no is really sure how much we spend, except that we spend more on intelligence than the entire world combined. Are we any safer, and how many mistakes has the intelligence community made since September 11th?

If we truly want to reduce the federal debt, entitlements and defense spending have to be included, as well as all areas of federal spending. Families have lived within their means since the recession began; now its time for government to follow suit!

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