Defense Priority

In a perfect world, I'd rather maintain our defense spending in a dangerous world even as we cut the rest of the budget to balance the books. Defense is the primary function of our federal government and I find it ridiculous to speak of defense spending causing our deficits. How on Earth can defense be anything other than the first X dollars of our revenue before we get to the borrowing stage?

If cutting defense spending is the price of getting real cuts to spending on non-defense items rather than what is on the table now, I'll accept cutting defense spending for now in order to preserve the medium term foundation of our military power--having our financial house in order.

I suspect that powerful forces will work to cut defense spending and continue spending at levels way above 2008 pre-financial crisis days.

Under those circumstances, I'd rather hold the line on defense spending and have a deficit a little higher on the theory that a few percentage points more in defense spending would be a drop in the bucket of federal red ink. Our defense budget should be used to defend us against foreign enemies--not against domestic spending binge follies.

It would be fascinating to watch as an intellectual exercise if our whole damned future wasn't on the line.