Defending the indefensible

The Washington Post's Robert Samuelson disembowels, or attempts to, Jessica Matthews' "America's Indefensible Defense Budget," printed in The New York Review of Books," July issue.

He does so by using misleading attacks on Matthews' statement, for instance, that "Defense spending now accounts for almost 60% of the budget: everything else is accommodated in the remaining two-fifths." Says Samuelson, she arrived at this figure by writing that "The way Mathews gets to 60 percent is by ignoring entitlement spending — the largest and fastest-growing part of the budget — and comparing defense outlays only to so-called discretionary spending."

Yet Matthews makes clear in her article that the the 60 percent figure is based on "the government’s unrestricted funds to defense" — meaning outlays outside of entitlement spending (my emphasis).

"None of this warrants a blank check for the military," writes Samuelson with throat-choking compassion.."Mathews is correct that there is waste in the system, including (as she says) weapons systems and bases that are preserved mostly because they have powerful political sponsors. But there is waste in many federal programs [ho-hum] — Medicare, student loans and Amtrak [rail transportation?], as examples — and they shouldn’t be used as a pretext for stalling needed defense spending."

We can assume Samuelson means, oh, let's say, tanks, which, writes Matthews, "are a classic case" of waste. " For years, the army has tried to convince Congress to stop buying new ones. They are expensive to build, maintain, exercise, and train troops to use. The army already has more than six thousand of them — far more than it needs for any conceivable future combat. " Or, "More controversially, the navy remains wedded to new aircraft carriers, but at $13 billion each they are arguably more an outdated symbol of twentieth-century power than an effective weapon system for a future in which they will be increasingly vulnerable to attack by high-speed, maneuverable missiles that can be bought for a minuscule fraction of what a carrier costs."

But, oh well, says Samuelson, what's a little bit of waste in the [military] system"?

He's been in Washington too long.

I recall reading, as a young man, John Kenneth Galbraith's brilliant deconstruction of defense spending on items such as tanks. Once produced, they just sit there, offering no multiplier effect. They're just hunks of metal that once manufactured are simply burdens on the economy. Samuelson may want to give Galbraith a read sometime. 

Comments

[Max]

Why do you even bother with this lying sycophant for the right-wing? Samuelson was a discredited hack 30 years ago, at least as bad and often worse than that other discredited WaPo hack, Richard Cohen.(OK, there are a number of other discredited hacks writing for the WaPo, including three (3) former Bush the Lesser speechwriters.)

[Anne J]

Such an obvious right wing Republican argument. Unlimited budgets for killing people while programs that save people's lives are wasteful. I'd prefer more money for programs that help the poor, the elderly, the disabled because I'm just pro life that way.

[Peter G]

Mind you Galbraith did also like the Keynesian argument that, at need and to inject liquidity into the economy, you could pay a fellow to dig a hole and another to fill it in. Expanding this argument, perhaps if you built tanks and aircraft carriers and then paid workers, to scrap them when times get tough...

Your Navy has been begging them to stop foisting aircraft carriers on them for some time now. I mean they do have uses when you want to project airpower against some more primitive foe. But you have more than enough for that already. But against a nation state like China they would be giant floating vulnerable gas stations that would succumb to saturation missile assault. And that 13 billion? It doesn't include the cost of building and deploying the defensive fleets that must sail with them in order to even have a chance of trying to defend them.

Pity the poor British, they just spent a pile building two massively expensive ACs and they can't even afford the planes they were literally designed around. That would be the VSTOL variant of the F-35 which just may yet turn out to be the most dysfunctional and expensive weapon system designed by the mind of man. God only knows where they plan to use them. Attacking the EU maybe?

[P.M. Carpenter]

Because I enjoy attacking lying sycophants for the right wing?

[Max]

Retired Admiral Hyman Rickover, Congressional testimony, circa spring 1981, after Reagan took office, with his Secretary of Defense and future federal felon, talking up extended nuclear war with the Soviet Union:

Senator: "What would be the likely lifespan of our aircraft carriers in the event of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union?"

Rickover: "A few days."

[Max]

Probably the equivalent of junk food for you, the Big Mac of sorts . . . I just think your considerable talents are needed for other subjects. But to each his own.

[Peter G]

Technology has improved Max. Now we are down to minutes. For some reason the lesson of history regarding technologies and say, battleships, remain unlearned by the politicians at least. Maybe it has something to do with them wanting something to put their names on? Interesting side note about old technology. The Argies sank the most advanced British air defense ship,the Coventry. And they did it with dumb bombs.

[sosueme]

William Rivers Pitt over at Truthout.org had an interesting article a couple weeks ago about the cost of our military might. The military is planning o new bomber, the b-21, at a cost of over $650 million each and they want between 100-125 . The F-35 program is at 1.5 trillion and rising and it seems it can not fly in the rain.

Sure we cannot afford health care for all, or to mend our crumbling infrastructure but we will be poised to fight WW11 again.

[Max]

Yup, and from relatively slow, older aircraft, the A4 Skyhawk. Reading the description and attack prompts, "Even in the future, nothing works." - Mel Brooks, Spaceballs.

Remember that Alexander Haig and Jeanne Kirkpatrick (the Leona Helmsley of politics at the time) wanted Reagan to side with Argentina.

[Tony]

Well, to look at the bright side, when a battleship sinks, it usually goes 2 miles down where it doesn't add anything to the human waste stream.

[Peter G]

Bit of a technology nerd myself and longtime subscriber to Aviation Week and Space Technology. There is a ratio of importance in determining the availability of aircraft for combat. That is the ratio of service hours required to flight hours. So far, judging by results to date, if you had forty of these F-35 aircraft on an aircraft carrier ten of them might be available for combat operations. And that number would decrease quite rapidly to zero in combat operations.

[Keith]

Generals and Admirals always plan to fight the last war again. The first hypersonic missile or even a swarm attack ,as someone mentioned , on a carrier and we will have thousands of dead sailers. Maybe that will focus some minds.
I don’t know , but suspect, there would be as many Dems as Repubs screaming if we ever started shutting defense plants.
Besides Iran could invade at any minute.

[P.M. Carpenter]

Keith, I couldn't disagree with you much more than I already do. But you keep writing. Hang in here. And disagreeing. And opposing. This site is for EVERYONE, though not for ulyraextremist views of the brownshirt variety. It's not an echo chamber, or least I hope not. So defend as best you can, although I must day, you're at a bit of contemporary disadvantage.

[Dr. Roy Tam]

Iran couldn’t invade America, Keith. You might want to look at a little thing known as logistics.

[Keith]

Well yeah Doc I see your point. Iran is on the other side of the globe. You have a keen grasp of the obvious. I suppose I should have put lol after that last comment.

[Dr. Roy Tam]

Don’t quit your day job.