Wisc. Teachers Protest Working an 8-Hour Work Day

-By Warner Todd Huston

Green Bay TV reported on June 21 that the teachers union in Green Bay, Wisconsin is incensed that the school district is demanding that teachers work an extra half hour a day, making their hours a set 8-hour day, or a 40-hour work week. In turn, this absurd ire displayed by teachers is incensing local Green Bay residents.

“They need to be the professionals that they are supposed to be. They sound like a bunch of idiots and they look like a bunch of idiots, they make the rest of us look bad,” said a listener to the Vicki McKenna Show.

Naturally the teachers union president assumes all you Green Bayers are stupid, that you don’t understand the issues, and says that she won’t listen to her critics, anyway.
Continue reading


Wisc. Teachers Protest Working an 8-Hour Work Day”


Roskam: The Dems Are Out of Touch‏

From the office of Rep. Peter Roskam (R, IL)…

We’re at a crossroads in America. The Obama economy continues to underperform: 9.1% national unemployment, 14 trillion in debt, and a potential double-dip recession on the horizon. Even with all of America’s assets, endless potential, and the unrelenting American spirit, this Administration has led our country astray with one failed policy after another.

Americans are tired of the Obama Administration’s continual underperformance and seemingly never-met expectations: an $800-billion failed “stimulus” and the promise that summer 2010 would be “recovery summer.” Yet, even in the face of proven failure and a weak economy, the Democrats that run Washington continue to cheerlead for their failed policies.

Just weeks ago, Democrat National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz actually told NBC’s Meet the Press that Democrats have “turned this economy around.”
Continue reading


Roskam: The Dems Are Out of Touch‏”


America’s Unfocused Immigration Policy Hurts American Workers

-By Sy Woodsman

I work for Customs and Border Protection and witness daily the damage our misguided immigration policy does to American citizens.

Did you know it takes about 4 hours to send each illegal alien back? The report generation and CYA process is staggering. (CYA Cover Your A*s) The CYA process and is due to the multiple and ever vigilant immigration lawyers and is a tremendous waste of manpower. If only they fought for you the American citizen as hard as they do for illegal immigrants!
Do you realize that while real unemployment is listed as 15.8%, today I and my coworkers at Customs and Border Protection will have admitted multiple J1 Visas who will be doing a job that you, or your teenager, or any other actual American citizen might need?

Sadly, I will admit a B1 (business) Visa holder into the country tomorrow that will abuse the limits of said Visa. Educate yourself about the B1 Visa abuse.
Continue reading


America’s Unfocused Immigration Policy Hurts American Workers”


Sarah Palin: America’s Real Frontrunner; Still on the Back Burner?

-By Rev Michael Bresciani‏

I have heard of starting an article with a disclaimer but never with an apology. It isn’t so much about breaking new ground in journalism but it is about respect for all our candidates that causes me to say that they all seem like a group of the very best gentlemen and ladies and all deserve to be heard out and considered.

I have enough trouble trying to get Americans to see that while the economy and jobs may be on the top of the list as a campaign war cry that is not all there is to the restoration of America. We must return to the rule of law and stop trying to quash every inference to God from our schools, public discourse and everyday life. Need I mention the abortion scourge and our plunge into unbridled immorality yet once again?

Our moral strength is inextricably entwined with our economic well being. This is a fact I have been pounding away at for years even as I have watched our nation teeter and scramble like so many blind men stumbling and falling just trying to find the door.
Continue reading


Sarah Palin: America’s Real Frontrunner; Still on the Back Burner?”


Lefties Try to Smear Wisconsin’s Judge Prosser… Again

-By Warner Todd Huston

Oh, the leftists thought they had him this time (again). So, they began a campaign to smear him (again). Turns out they were wrong (again). And their allegations mysteriously disappeared from the Internet after they found out they were wrong (again).

The left tried once again to smear Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge David Prosser by claiming that he physically attacked another judge (naturally she’s a crazed left-wing judge, too) in a closed-doors meeting late last week. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley actually charged Prosser with “choking her.” Notice she did so only in the press, though. Prosser, of course, is denying it all…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


For Every Awful Gov’t Action There is An Equally Awful Reaction, Horses Worst Hit!

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is a jester of a Chicago Alderman named Ed Burke who back in the early 1990s made local radio audiences laugh by his plaintive plea of “what about the horses” on the floor of Chicago’s City Hall. He was worried that horses in downtown Chicago’s carriage trade were somehow being mistreated and so he tried to pass all sorts of absurd new regulations in Chicago to help his equine buddies. His plea rings in my ears as I read this new story of the “unintended consequences” of federal regulations meant to save the horses that has only made their lives more miserable.

Since we became a country there have been businesses geared to dispatch and butcher ailing, broken down, or unwanted horses. These horse abattoirs may be remembered once upon a time as supplying some of the raw materials for glue factories. But they also supplied the meat for zoos, circuses and increasingly for meat markets overseas where consumption of horsemeat by humans does not carry the cultural shock that it might here in the United States.

But congress knew better, you see. Congress had become the ultimate horse whisperers and could read the horses minds to know that they felt abused by these evil slaughterhouses. And so, because congress is oh, so caring, that august body passed laws that materially harmed horse slaughterhouses in America. These rules eventually made such businesses close up and disappear in the USA.

It’s for the horses, ya know?
Continue reading


For Every Awful Gov’t Action There is An Equally Awful Reaction, Horses Worst Hit!”


Ottawa Small Business Owner & Rep. Adam Kinzinger on America’s Nightly Scoreboard‏

From the office of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R, ILL)…

Jerry Halterman, owner of HR Imaging Partners Inc. in Ottawa, IL and U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger (IL-11) joined David Asman on America’s Nightly Scoreboard to discuss how the Administration’s failed policies have created more government regulation and a lack of confidence to expand business.

This interview comes on the heels of Rep. Kinzinger’s small business roundtable with members of the Ottawa Area Chamber of Commerce. Kinzinger hosted the roundtable to listen and discuss business owner’s ideas to create economic certainty in order to leave future generations with a strong, thriving economy. The roundtable confirmed the recent National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) report, which stated confidence of small businesses has dropped into recessionary levels. Small business owners from Ottawa, IL claimed taxes and regulations contribute to the continued uncertainty over our economy.

http://kinzinger.house.gov/


Greece Is the Word

-By Frank Salvato

Greece, the cradle of democracy, is experiencing chaotic violence at the hands of Socialists and anarchists. That country’s Socialist government has come to a moment in time – like most Socialist and Marxist enterprises – when the system has failed. The promises of the Nanny State and prefectorial centralized government have come up empty and “the people” are angry as a result. Of course, “the people,” the ones who, today, are refusing to realize that you can’t bleed a turnip, are exactly the ones who are to blame for the situation they are in. If the citizenry of the United States of America isn’t careful and willing to make some painful adjustments, economically, we may be starring this future directly in the eye.

Today, We the People – we Americans, stand at a moment in time when a very hard decision needs to be made; honestly, the fate of the nation rides upon it. We can either follow the path of the Socialist Greeks; the path that has led them to national bankruptcy, debt and that nation’s unenviable position as the fuse for a global economic chain reaction that would send the world into the depths of an economic abyss the likes of which haven’t been seen since the Great Depression, or we can feel a good deal of pain in the form of sacrifice so that our country might continue to exist for future generations.

At this crossroads, We the People find ourselves confronted by some very uncomfortable questions. Are we willing to push ourselves back from the “feed trough” of government dependence? Are we willing to embrace self-imposed personal responsibility, charity and self-reliance? Or are we too uncaring of our nation’s well-being that greed is somehow justified; too narcissistic to abstain from the too easy to attain government entitlement; too self-absorbed and addicted to the “I’ve got mine, to Hell with you” machinations of the Progressive “Me Generation”?
Continue reading


Greece Is the Word”


Teamster Bosses Having Big Night Out in Las Vegas

-By Warner Todd Huston

Hey, Teamsters members… how pleased are you that your union bosses are spending thousands of you dues money for a Las Vegas vacation?

Courtesy of LaborUnionReport.com

I wonder, brothers, are your union bigwigs sending YOU to beautiful, exciting Las Vegas for fun in the sun?

… or are you working your fingers to the bone while they cavort in Sin City on your dime?
Continue reading


Teamster Bosses Having Big Night Out in Las Vegas”


More Obama Ignorance on Jobs, Economy: One Week Automation is Bad, the Next its Good

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember last week how President Obama was railing about how evil ATMs were because they somehow took away people’s jobs. This evil, evil automation was bad on June 14, right? Well today, only eleven days later, suddenly Barack Obama is all about automation and how wonderful it is…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Chicago’s New Top Cop: A Race Baiter That Stands Against the U.S. Constitution

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again St. Sabina, the “Catholic” Church on Chicago’s South Side, makes the news for race-baiting and down talking our U.S. Constitution. This time it is Chicago’s new Police Superintendent, Garry McCarthy, who appeared at the church and indulged his inner Father Pfleger with a rant on how the US is filled with racists and how the U.S. Constitution was written to kill minorities.

After the race-baiting “Father” Michael Pfleger left the stage, Chicago’s new top cop took his turn at stirring the race hatred instilled deep in the parishioners by years of Pfleger’s demagoguery. Superintendent McCarthy didn’t disappoint the crowd eager for more race-baiting, for sure.

“So here’s what I want to tell you…,” McCathy said warming to his theme. “Slavery. Segregation. Black codes. Jim Crow. What, what did they all have in common? Anybody getting’ scared? Government sponsored racism.”

Then he really got into the weeds…
Continue reading


Chicago’s New Top Cop: A Race Baiter That Stands Against the U.S. Constitution”


Kinzinger Supports Bill to Increase North American Energy Production

From the office of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R, ILL)…

Washington, D.C. – The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-11) serves on, yesterday passed the North American-Made Energy Security Act, H.R. 1938, with bipartisan support by a vote of 33 to 13. Kinzinger issued the following statement:

“What does the Keystone XL pipeline mean for the United States? For starters it means reducing our addiction to foreign oil and creating directly and indirectly more than 100,000 jobs.

“It means 1.3 million barrels of oil from our friends to the North, which means we will need less oil from the Middle East, less oil from Venezuela, less oil from countries we can no longer rely on.

“And, it means $5.2 billion in new property tax revenue for bankrupt states.
Continue reading


Kinzinger Supports Bill to Increase North American Energy Production”


Mattel Lacks Mettle: Another Victim of Liberal ‘Dialogue’

-By Daniel Clark

In September of 2000, Republican congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage of Idaho attended a public hearing about wildfires at the University of Montana. It was there that a young environmentalist stormed to the front of the lecture hall, shouted, “you are the greatest threat to the forest,” and struck her with a pie filled with rotten salmon. After his removal, a recess had to be called so that Rep. Chenoweth-Hage could clean all the fishy bits out of her hair and clothing. That’s what happens to people who try to sit down and reason with liberal activists.

This is a lesson that corporate executives never seem to learn. Every time some interest group demands to have a “dialogue,” they come running to show their eagerness to get along. In the end, they always get walloped with the proverbial rancid salmon pie, but they never see it coming, no matter how often it happens. The latest example of this involves a protest by Greenpeace against Mattel, manufacturer of the Barbie doll. If the connection between the two is not apparent to you, that’s only because you are sane.

Eight Greenpeace members rappelled down the side of the company’s headquarters, and unfurled a banner featuring Barbie’s boyfriend Ken, saying, “Barbie, it’s over. I don’t date girls that are into deforestation.” The accusation is that the packaging Mattel uses for its dolls is destroying the “rain forests.”
Continue reading


Mattel Lacks Mettle: Another Victim of Liberal ‘Dialogue’”


Rep. Kinzinger Defies GOP Opposition to Democrats War Resolution

-By Warner Todd Huston

Representative Adam Kinzinger made what is in my opinion a principled vote on the pair of resolutions concerning the authorization and funding of Obama’s mission in Libya today. His principles however ran counter to the Republican’s conventional wisdom on this and he was one of only eight Republicans to do so in one case.

The first resolution that came to a vote was H.J.Res.68 – Authorizing the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in support of the NATO mission in Libya. It was introduced by extremist, left-wing Democrat Alcee Hastings (D, Florida). The resolution was meant to give cover to President Obama’s military involvement and hoped to give Obama up to a year of extra time to stay in Libya without further authorization.

Kinzinger voted with the Democrats on this, but I feel he did so in keeping with his support of the mission as opposed to his desire to aid Democrats. He supports this mission and that is that. Whether you agree with the effort or not, I think Kinzinger stayed true to his ideals and did not use this vote to play politics with the issue. (Kinzinger voted “yea” along with eight other Republicans: Dent; Dreier; S.King; P.King; McCotter; Rivera; Rogers of Michigan)

**BELOW, see video of Kinzinger’s floor speeches and a transcript of his comments**
Continue reading


Rep. Kinzinger Defies GOP Opposition to Democrats War Resolution”


Romney’s Huge Money Advantage

-By Warner Todd Huston

A few weeks ago, Herman Cain said that he wasn’t worried about facing Mitt Romney, but he was worried about facing Mitt’s money. Today, Politico reports that Romney has a huge advantage over the other Republican candidates with a campaign war chest they can’t duplicate.

If his one-day fundraiser in May that brought in $10 million is any indication, Romney seems to be on target to raise nearly $40 million for the 2012 election and the primaries that precede it. The campaign is low-balling that figure by saying that he will only reach about $20 million, but even to me that seems low…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Sen. Johnson: Obama and his Administration Have ‘Little Experience in Manufacturing or Business’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Senator Ron Johnson (R, Wis.) commented in advance of the President’s speech on manufacturing and is here to tell President Obama, “the government doesn’t create jobs, it creates debt and it is the private sector that creates long-term, self-sustaining jobs.”

Today the President is traveling to Pittsburgh to talk about manufacturing. As a person who spent 31 years building a successful manufacturing company, I am curious what President Obama might say about manufacturing. He has little personal experience in manufacturing or business. He has very few members within his administration with success in manufacturing or the private sector.

President Obama needs to change his way of thinking. He needs to realize that government doesn’t create jobs, it creates debt. It is the private sector that creates long term, self-sustaining jobs.
Continue reading


Sen. Johnson: Obama and his Administration Have ‘Little Experience in Manufacturing or Business’”


Delta Airlines: Anti-Soldier, Anti-Jew, Anti-Christian, but Now Pro Racist Muslims

-By Warner Todd Huston

I think Delta Airlines should change its name to Omega Airlines because at this point it is the last airline that I’ll ever fly. Not only did Delta try to charge our returning soldiers thousands of dollars to check their bags as they came back from the wars, now the airlines has intertwined itself with Saudi Arabia airlines and have agreed to discriminate against Jews and Christians because of it.

USA Today reported early on Thursday that Delta Airlines would be bowing to Saudi Arabia’s oppressive and racist entry laws by banning Jews — ore even people with “Jewish sounding names” — as well as anything related to Christianity.

As my friend Jeff Dunetz snarked, “Ladies and Gentlemen we are no approaching Saudi Arabia, the Captain has turned on the no Jews light.”
Continue reading


Delta Airlines: Anti-Soldier, Anti-Jew, Anti-Christian, but Now Pro Racist Muslims”


Contrary to Claim, White House Did Control GM’s Daily Business And Cut Workers Pay?

-By Warner Todd Huston

When Barack Obama threw millions of our tax dollars at General Motors to “save it,” the administration claimed that it would not involve itself in the “day-to-day management” of the venerable car company. New emails obtained by The Daily Caller, however, casts doubt on this claim.

In fact, as Matthew Boyle reports, the emails “reveal that Treasury officials were involved in decision-making that led to more than 20,000 non-union workers losing their pensions.”

It turns out that Treasurer Secretary Timothy Geithner pressured GM, widely derided as Government Motors, to cut the pensions for the salaried, non-union employees at Delphi, a company owned by GM.
Continue reading


Contrary to Claim, White House Did Control GM’s Daily Business And Cut Workers Pay?”


Kinzinger Urges Passage of Jobs and Energy Permitting Act

From the Office of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R, IL)…

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-11), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, spoke out on the floor of the House in support of H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011. This bipartisan legislation would ease the permitting process in order to increase domestic energy production opportunities, reduce our addiction on foreign oil and create American jobs.

“The American people are beginning to understand that this Administration and its agencies are having real consequences and real impacts on the unemployment rate, on the joblessness and on the price we are paying on a barrel of oil and a gallon of gasoline,” said Kinzinger. “Every dollar that a gallon of gasoline increases, it is a regressive tax on Americans. Meanwhile, we sit around and argue while bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. have their way.”

Development in two of Alaska’s Arctic seas (the Beaufort and Chukchi), which contain up to 27.9 billion barrels of oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, could deliver up to 1 million barrels of oil per day of domestic energy.

Congressman Kinzinger represents the Eleventh Congressional District which is home to three nuclear power plants, hydropower plants, ethanol and biodiesel plants, and an oil refinery. The district embodies the all-of-the-above approach to energy that Kinzinger stands for. Nuclear energy production alone employs more than 2,500 people through the Illinois Valley.

http://kinzinger.house.gov/


Politically Correct Washington Supreme Court Overturns Murder Conviction

-By Selwyn Duke

In 2007, Kevin L. Monday Jr. was convicted for the murder of Francisco Green and received 64 years in prison. The incident ad been caught on a 3-minute video recording shot by a street performer, and the footage clearly showed Monday coolly and calculatingly firing 11 shots at Green on a crowded Seattle, Washington, street corner. Thus, despite the reluctance of witnesses to testify, it was an open-and-shut case.

But now the Washington Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling, has overturned the conviction and a lower court that upheld it – thus forcing a retrial – claiming that the prosecutor used “racist” arguments. What is the supposed problem? While questioning witnesses, veteran King County deputy prosecutor James Konat cited a no-snitching street code in the black community and made references to the “PO-leese.” Writes Jennifer Sullivan of The Washington Times:
Continue reading


Politically Correct Washington Supreme Court Overturns Murder Conviction”


No Hiccups in State’s Construction Plan‏

From the Office of GOP Minority Leader Tom Cross…

After action by the General Assembly today — the state’s construction program will continue without interruption this summer keeping tens of thousands of people on the job repairing our state’s roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

This is another example of the General Assembly working together this session to achieve the common goal to put our state back on the right track.

We worked together to pass a budget that spends less money than we did last year—and made some tough choices to keep our spending down.

This has to be our new way of life.

We are not finished working on budgets that continue to bring our spending under control and reforming our government to make our state a place we can be proud of.

CLICK HERE to watch my comments on the House Floor today.


Huntsman’s Path to GOP Nomination: Ignore GOP Voters

-By Warner Todd Huston

One has to wonder if Jon Huntsman’s path to the GOP nomination for the White House will be second only to Newt Gingrich’s for its impossibility? Even Huntsman is admitting in an interview with Politico that the only way he can win is if he aims for non-Republican votes for his primary effort. So, the only way he can win the GOP nomination, even in his own opinion, is if he ignores GOP voters! If this isn’t a joke, what is?

As Kasie Hunt writes for Politico, Huntsman “sketched out a path to the Republican nomination” with the Internet newser that was, “an exercise in needle-threading that hinges on his ability to capture a large swath of independent voters.”…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


Jose Antonio Vargas: From Journalist to Illegal Immigrant and Political Activist

-By Warner Todd Huston

The newly publicized life-story of award winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas seems to be one of those revelatory stories that tends to confirm some of the worst charges against liberals and the Old Media. The media sees no reason not to break the law, it employs people with political agendas, and all the while refuses to inform customers of the “news” that this is the case. As it happens, Vargas is an illegal immigrant in this country and has been for decades.

Vargas won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2007 coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings, he also made tongues wag recently with an exclusive interview with the reclusive founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. But his chief journalistic interest has been as a political reporter for the Washington Post.

But even as he has for more than a decade been given the role of an arbiter of sorts of political news, Vargas has been an illegal resident of the very country he has been reporting on.
Continue reading


Jose Antonio Vargas: From Journalist to Illegal Immigrant and Political Activist”


Obama’s Union-Sold Regulatory Agency Goes Even Further for Unions

-By Warner Todd Huston

With one regulatory decision after anther, Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has repeatedly abused its position and lent its powers to come to the material aid of Big Labor. This week we see the NLRB coming to the aid of unions yet again by changing rules to fast track union votes in businesses not yet suffering under union control.

The NLRB has ruled that unions trying to strong arm their way into businesses will now be afforded a sort of fast tracked voting process meant to give both businesses and employees far, far less time to learn about and understand the issues surrounding a vote in favor of unionization.

Currently when a union wants to get itself certified in a new company the NLRB takes between five and six weeks to conduct the elections. Under the NLRB’s new rules that time period will be shorted to a scant 10 to 21 days.
Continue reading


Obama’s Union-Sold Regulatory Agency Goes Even Further for Unions”


Dems Plan Proves Medicare Dead by 2024

-By Warner Todd Huston

Congressman Peter Roskam, House GOP Deputy Majority Whip, got on record the fact that as things stand right now Medicare is dead by 2024. No ifs, ands, or buts, unless a major overhaul of the system is undertaken, Medicare is done in a little more than a decade.

Before congress two officials testified that based on our current path in 2024 there would be “actual” cuts to Medicare at 17%. They also confirmed that Medicare would end itself by 2024 unless actions are taken to save the program.

Democrats have tried to claim that it is Republican cost cutting that dooms Medicare, but this is simply untrue. Bt the very rules under which it now works, it seems that Medicare is already headed for doomsday.
Continue reading


Dems Plan Proves Medicare Dead by 2024″


A Time for Choosing

“So we have come to a time for choosing,” warned Ronald Reagan in his famous speech nominating Barry Goldwater for President in 1964. It was one of the most important speeches in American history — and remains terrifyingly true today.

Millions without jobs. American values under attack. Bailouts, deficits, and debt that threatens the future for our children and grandchildren. Will the citizens of this great country allow it to continue?

America truly faces a time for choosing in November 2012. Stand with us to retake America and win one for the Gipper.


Kinzinger Reaction to the President’s Remarks Regarding Troop Withdrawal in Afghanistan

From the Office of Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R, IL)…

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-11), a pilot in the Air National Guard, issued the following statement on the President’s announced plans in Afghanistan:

“Last month during my trip to Afghanistan, I spoke with generals on the ground who believe we are winning and have turned the corner. The wrong thing to do at this stage would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which will happen if the number of troops withdrawn exceeds the recommendations of our generals. Decisions regarding troop withdrawals must be determined by conditions on the ground, not political timelines.

“Stability in Afghanistan remains a top priority in the interest of our national security. History will judge us by the decisions we made to ensure the safety of our men and women overseas and of our country during this critical time. Our mission must be about the long-term safety of our nation, not the next election – this is something we cannot lose sight of.”

http://kinzinger.house.gov/


A Spending Increase in Springfield‏

Following the passage of a record tax hike earlier this year, politicians from both parties promised fiscal austerity. As some would tell it, they’ve delivered on that promise by passing a budget containing cuts.

But the truth is they have not delivered on that promise. At least not yet.

Our analysis shows how – contrary to promises and reports of a leaner budget – the plan passed by the General Assembly amounts to a significant spending increase compared to last year. This budget will lead to billions in new deficit spending over the coming decade, while setting the stage for extending the tax increases. It cannot stand. To learn more about this, watch this video of highlights from our press conference yesterday:

Bottom line: Spending is still too high. The credibility of politicians who promised an end to tax-and-spend habits and gimmickry is on the line. Additional reductions must be made, and they must be made now.

Call your state legislator today, and let them know what you think about unchecked spending growth.

Kristina Rasmussen
Executive Vice President
Illinois Policy Institute
Continue reading


A Spending Increase in Springfield‏”


The Strategic Debate We Need To Have

– By Jeff Lukens

The U.S. federal debt is our nation’s greatest strategic weakness. As the debt continues to grow, our military posture around the globe is threatened. Defense cuts are coming, and with that reduction must come a reduced mission. In this environment, what our nation’s strategic mission should be, and what the corresponding defense funding should be to meet that need, are open questions. They are questions that need to be openly explored by politicians and the American people alike.

In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “A smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and do fewer things.” Ever the public servant, Gates seeks to kindle a debate the country seems reluctant, but needs, to have. It would be an invitation to disaster if we kept the same mission with reduced funding, or a reduced force. By bringing the issue to the public forum, Gates apparently seeks to avoid that calamity.

The core Pentagon budget is now about $530 billion, and accounts for roughly 20 percent of federal spending, and roughly half of discretionary spending. Defense cuts are coming, that much we know for sure, and the easiest of them have already been made. Gates acknowledged that over the past two years, “more than 30 programs (weapon systems, etc.) were canceled, capped, or ended that, if pursued to completion, would have cost more than $300 billion.”
Continue reading


The Strategic Debate We Need To Have”