What we need is an economy robust enough to sustain itself even without juicy Pentagon contracts.

FWIW, Sen. Ted Stevens had an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News yesterday touting the C-17s and F-22s newly arrived at Elmendorf Air Force Base as a boon to the local economy. Contracts for building new hangars & such.

"I never voted for this war," she said. But "I'm not going to vote against $2.1 billion for C-17 production, which is in California. That is just not going to happen."

That's a real profile in courage. With anti-war Dems like this, I guess we're going to be in Iraq for a lo-o-o-o-ng time. —Kevin Drum

And voting for the continued funding of a transprot plane prolongs the war in what way? One can be anti-current war and pro-defense.

Honest scary people are really the scariest. Duck and cover.

Didn't somebody once warn about the dangers of the military-industrial complex?

That's simply an issue that Pelosi, Reid et al. need to address. First there is the fact that the war has broken the military: much of its materiel is exhausted, broken, or rendered obsolete by the training that we have provided the Iraqi resistance. The military will have to be re-outfitted and repaired. That is completely separate from providing continuing, off-budget funding for the Grand Iraq Game. If the Bush Administration is trying to link the two it is up to Congress to decouple them.

Didn't somebody once warn about the dangers of the military-industrial complex?

It's coming back to me ..., a famous General, I think, maybe a Republican ...

"I never voted for this war"

Um...the moment you cast a vote in favor of funding it, instead of defunding it or setting a timetable to withdraw, you voted for the war.

And voting for the continued funding of a transprot plane prolongs the war in what way?

It's in the same bill, Jeff.

What we need is an economy robust enough to sustain itself even without juicy Pentagon contracts.

Didn't somebody once warn about the dangers of the military-industrial complex?

Too late, Ike. We are the military-industrial complex.

Establishing a Palmocracy
My Mother often tells the story how, some 60 years ago, a local small town politician, to explain politics to her said, "When it comes to politics, its like this. Spit in one hand and put money in the other and see which way the head start tilting."
Think of the upturned palms in Washington. Think of the K Street money machinery.
I call this form of government a "palm-ocracy."
The goal in Iraq was to form a 'palmocracy' with Chalabi as the bursar in chief. It's the American way.
This thinking also gives rise to new lessons to be added to 'Rules for Invading Sovereignties.'
Never invade a country to promote aligning interests unless you can, with certainty, determine who you can effectively bribe.
Also, never attempt to occupy a country with two Popes.
-cognitorex-

Sorry, Kevin, but unless Sanchez had something to do with bundling the two items together, then you're barking up the wrong tree. As rk says (12:04), this is Pelosi's failure if she's forcing her people to choose between funding for their district and putting a stop to the war. A huge failure.

Liberals, progressives, leftists and even decent moderates need to start planning now to end the political careers of Democratic neo-conservative enablers in 2010 like Rep. Sanchez. Because of circumstances, representatives like Sanchez should not be confronted in this election cycle, which should provide an overwhelming Democratic majority in Congress. But representatives who have not demonstrated an affinity for confronting the Republican wars should be thrown out by party activists in 2010 and replaced with representatives who more closely represent the desires of their political base.

Ralph is almost right: There's little difference between a Dim and a Repug.

Why "almost right"?

Well there is some small difference:

A Repug fucks the world up with a happy knack.
A Dim fucks it up with a sad "alack."

Sanchez is the typical spineless DLC worm to make B-1 Bob Dornan look honorable by comparison. I hope someone good challenges her in the primary next year and toss her into the dung heap.

to make B-1 Bob Dornan look honorable by comparison.

Let's not get carried away.

The only time the Dems seem to act/talk tough is when they're fund-raising. Then they can't say enough bad things about Bush or Iraq. Then they can't promise enough that they are agents of change. From now on, I'm basing my political contributions on what these cowards do, not what their fund-raising letters promise they will do.

The sad fact is that no senator or representative was ever defeated for bringing money into his or her state/district. The only opportunity to shrink the "pork" defense budget will come when Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security spending really starts to expand, and that's another ten years down the road, more or less. As long as money is available, Congress will spend it, and right now there's no real shortage of cash.

Let's not get carried away.
Posted by: shortstop

Seriouly. This is bad, but it's not all Sanchez's fault. Still, someone needs to run against her to make her crap her nylons, straighten up and fly right.

You don't go to war with the Representatives you wish you had, you go to war with the Representatives you have.

Dirty Sanchez.

I don't get it. How could Dems ever vote to fund normal military hardware without it being construed as support for the war in Iraq? They certainly can't defund the entire military.

Bush is in charge. He's the Commander-in-chief and the war goes on because HE wants it to.

Congress is a bystander until there are enough people in America who tell their Republican senators to let the Dems impeach and remove Bush & Co.

"Let's not get carried away."

Sorry... I can still feel some contempt for Newt and B-1 Bob. DLCers are beneath contempt.

Honestly, I think the DNC has whored themselves out so cheaply that the Progressives should start all over again. Regroup as Greens and attack the DNC from the outside. The only way to save the soul of the FDR/HST/LBJ Democratic party is to take the current title holders to the back and end their misery.

This IS the leadership's responsibility. It didn't have to be all in one bill.

But look at it from a cynical point of view: the longer the war goes on, and the longer Bush and the Republicans have to support it publicly, the lower their stock sinks, and the worse they look for '08. And conversely, it would be a tremendous uphill fight to actually END the war, and even trying to do so would give Bush et al. a big issue to bleat about.

The safer course is to TALK about ending the war without actually trying to do it, and in the meantime keep the gravy train flowing.

What a cesspool...

I wonder if this makes Loretta Sanchez The Manchurian Congresswoman.

I don't disagree about the DNC's worthlessness, astrid (although I part ways with you on the solution); I just started laughing when I read your post, remembering B1 Bob's antics.

At the very least, he was entertaining. Sanchez, not so much. I'd love to see someone good run against her.

I'm represented by Loretta's sister Linda, a much smarter and more progressive politician. After vanquishing B-1 Bob Dornan, Loretta's most notable achievement was being tone-deaf enough to rent the Playboy Mansion for a fundraiser during the Democratic Convention in 2000 when every story about Democrats still contained juvenile heavy-breathing sexual undertones. She was a Republican when she was young; somewhere along the line she decided that being an Hispanic woman would work out better for her in the Democratic Party.

She can now truly claim the mantle of her predecessor and be forever known as 'C-17 Loretta.'

She is also famous for her Christmas cards with her cats.
http://wonkette.com/politics/loretta-sanchez/loretta-sanchezs-christmas-card-221348.php

Yay, finally someone who LISTENS to her true constituents: the C-17 industry! Bet you she is all for Hillary's lobbyists too!

Oh, and Grumpy, the issue is not that military expenditures are necessary for the economy as a whole (although they are relatively important to certain local economies, e.g., parts of SoCal). Rather, it is that, because we depend on private corporations to supply our military materiel, and because we want at least some competition to keep prices down, and (importantly) because maintaining military readiness requires that those corporations be available to start cranking out whatever we need at a moment's notice, we basically have to subsidize them during the times we don't need them. IOW, we don't need them for macroeconomic reasons; we need them because we need their industry-specific capabilities.

There are ways around this, e.g., diversification (GM produces HMMWVs, Boeing produces commercial aircraft), and/or maintenance of the necessary technological and human resources at a much smaller scale in government labs (e.g., MIT Lincoln). But the former still creates incentives to produce and sell military equipment (we're still the world's largest supplier of weaponry, by far), and the latter has both profit motives and ideology working against it.

Tough problem, actually, and one with gigantically tragic and wasteful consequences.

Keven: That's a real profile in courage.

I'm always amused when I see this meme, since the person who "won" the Pulitzer Prize for it (JFK) had paid someone else to write it for him (Ted Sorensen).

This is truly the heart of the issue. As someone who works in the defense industry, I see people every day who are against this war in theory, but will never support a politician who cuts defense spending. For a certain pct of the electorate, it really does come down to that.

Perfect example: the Lieberman-Lamont race. Those voters voted for their big defense contracts, and nothing else.

And yes, Pelosi needs to separate the expenditures into different bills if there will be a hope in hell of cutting off funding for the war.

"I see people every day who are against this war in theory, but will never support a politician who cuts defense spending."

What a wonderful system - those voters and pols like Sanchez truly deserve each other. Now can they be shunned for being the callous, shortsighted, hypocritical worms that they are?

Defense spending is welfare. It's taking tax money from one part of the population and giving it to another part, to pay them to do nothing.

The useless junk it buys does not count as something, because America's actual defense needs would be met at a fraction of the cost. What this stuff goes toward is America's offense needs, which are artificial needs created by the welfare bums who get the contracts for the planes.

(America's need to invade Iraq was artificial all the way)

As an Orange County-ite, represented by a more or less out and out Bushy at this time, I think the 2010 primary challenge is a great idea.

Actually, I wish we could get rid of her sooner and replace her with a somewhat smarter, if not more unashamedly progressive, Democrat. I sort of met her once and her affect reminded me of a cheerleader. (In fact, it was election day in 2004 and, for the benefit of local TV camera, said words to the following effect..."I've heard some early information through the grapevine and we're gonna win!!")

We should be investing in hydrogen fuel cells, solar energy and the next, next generation of energy technologies (fusion, antimatter?, antigravity?, etc.), instead of weapons of war that produce nothing but misery and death. What a complete lack of vision by both Democrats and Republicans!

I dream of the day when education gets all the funding it needs and the Pentagon has to hold a bake sale to buy a rifle.

Defense spending is welfare.

Defense spending is corporate welfare. It produces intangible goods and services that provide no benefit or increased quality of life to its citizens who pay for it. The C-17, unlike a toaster, does not increase the wealth of the nation, but instead takes wealth out of it. Compromised people like Rep. Sanchez and her follower will say spending money on intangible goods like the C-17 improves the quality of life for her district. It does improve the quality of life for the corporations and its employees who build it, but at the expense of everyone else in the country.

If we can't stop the war machine, as Paul Craig Roberts says in an article at Counterpunch entitled 'In The Hole To China', China can, and if they do, it wont be pretty at all.

We should be investing in hydrogen fuel cells, solar energy and the next, next generation of energy technologies...
Posted by: The Conservative Deflator on August 9, 2007 at 1:08 PM
-------
Yes, we should. The Scientific/Engineering/Technical jobs should be moving to those areas. We do need a basic defense infrastructure for reasons Bleh mentions above, but it is definitely time for a new "peace dividend" that gets spent here and uses the same skill sets for more productive purposes. The "trouble" with all of this however.. is that it will need *some* form of "protection" from the rest of the global economy for it to work. All the Republicans can think of to keep the economy running is something that is already protected: The MIC. Protecting and nurturing a high-tech domestic scientific/engineering effort such as energy independence would be *socialism* or just simply not in the interest of the oil companies.

Brojo,

I have no brief for the C-17 or its manufacturer, but I think you misunderstand the issues. "Welfare" is what economists call transfer payments. Transfer payments are taking money from one citizen and giving it to another without any public benefit. Social security, medicaid and AFDC are all "welfare" programs, as are many corporate welfare programs like farm aid and Export/Import Bank financing.

What is not welfare is spending on "public goods." Economists view public goods as those things (or services) that everyone benefits from but no one person has any incentive to pay for because the benefits would flow to the whole public. The classic example is national defense. You could, I suppose, pay for an Army, Navy and Air Force all by yourself, but I would benefit from your expenditures as much as you even though I pay nothing. That's why it's moral to use the power of the State to tax everyone to pay for public goods.

Now it may well me that there's a lot of waste in the defense budget. And it is certainly true that there are a lot of earmarks in it, which are almost certainly "welfare" in the classic sense. Whether the C-17 program falls into either of these categories or meets a genuine need of the Army and Air Force, I can't say.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

Social security, medicaid and AFDC are welfare programs that provide public benefits, because the transfer of wealth is spent on tangible goods and services. Defense spending is a corporate welfare program that provides no public benefit, because no tangible goods or services are produced.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

The 2.1b in funding to purchase an additional 10 C-17's was not requested by the Pentagon, but was added by the Democratic Congress. Apparently, although most of the aircraft is built in Long Beach, some components are manufactured in St. Louis, so Sen Talent (R - MO) had it added into the Emergency Supplemental Bill to fund the Iraq and Afghan Wars.

By sliding routine defense appropriations out of the Pentagon's Annual budget and into the Emergency Supplemental, it makes it very much more difficult for war opponents to vote against continued funding of the war. Of course, I don't believe Talent's sleight of hand would have been possible without the complicity of the Democratic leadership since it was done via conference committee.

It looks to me like the Democratic leadership is trying to placate opponents of the war while sabotaging efforts to bring it to an end.

http://justanotherblowback.blogspot.com/2006/10/spending-bill-funds-10-more-boeing-c.html

Brojo,

yes, thank you, that does clariy things for me. Government spending on goods and services you don't like are "welfare" and government spending on goods and services you do like are not. Well, OK, I suppose there's a neutral principle there somewhere, although I don't see it at the moment. But I appreciate your effort.

"I'm not going to vote against $2.1 billion for C-17 production, which is in California. That is just not going to happen."

Loretta Sanchez is no sniveling spineless Congresswoman - indeed, in a rare moment of political honesty, Sanchez has told all those with ears to listen why we are in Iraq in the first place. As the commenter above said, we are the military-industrial complex now; the two most frightening words in the English language to an American politician are "world peace".

The calamity our leaders fear will "follow us home" is not terrorism (they know terrorism is here to stay and there's not a damn thing they can do about it) but economic collapse. For if America no longer wishes to provide the police force for the global marketplace, what does the rest of the world need America for? There are a number of good answers to that question, both pro and con; the point is that America's political leadership is too frightened to consider the question in the first place.

After witnessing repeated abuses by politicians who would amend standing legislation with earmarks and other provisions often completely unrelated to the overall intent of the bill, nearly 25 years ago the Hawaii State Legislature -- to great public acclaim -- enacted a law requiring all initial provisions of any legislative measure, and all subsequent amendments to that measure thereof, to be wholly germaine to the bill's title.

For the most part, it has worked in the two-plus decades since it was first approved, and our state's official session laws (those bills passed by the legislature, approved by the governor and subsequently enrolled) have been relatively clean and free of extraneous and unrelated materials.

As we stare in the face of record deficits and an exploding national debt, it might well be time for the American people to insist that Congress does the same. While it's certainly not a panacea for all that ails that body, it might well prove effective in curbing or inhibiting those lawmakers otherwise prone to engage in the distasteful legislative practices of piggybacking or hostage-taking.

Donald:

Another 300 point drop on Wall St. today. The Chinese are about to pull the rug out from lending us any more money to finance our out-of-control deficit spending. The mortgage market is circling the drain. Our trade deficit is approaching a tenth of our GDP. And these jackass conservatives are trying to sell the idea that tax cuts have created such a robust economy? What are they smoking??? Maui Wowie??

TCD

The money spent by the recipients of social security, medicaid and AFDC is on tangible goods and services, which is why it benefits the overall economy. The money spent on defensive public goods, like C-17's, are intangibles that provide no material benefit to the economy.

DBL, sorry if that is difficult for you to understand. Some public goods provide tangible benefits to the economy, like wealth transfers to the poor do, some do not, like defense spending, which transfers wealth to large corporations to make public goods with no actual or approximate value to the economy.

A bridge is a tangible public good. A nuclear submarine is not.

DBL, so you like military industrial products, eh? How many fighter aircraft do you keep in your garage, and are they fun to fly? Have you dropped any bombs on your neighbors lately?

Please, tell us how your favorite welfare program has improved your life.

Let me guess, you use it to keep commies from overrunning your backyard. Yeah, sure.

10% of her district depends on those funds directly. Voting against them is death to her, and she can not nor will not see past that. We're too individualistic to push on the ranks of Democrats that much.

However...

...We really do need to decouple the adventure funding from the hardware funding from the general military budget.

But how?

Well... 'Welfare' keeps indigent people from dying on my lawn. I'm fond of that one.

The Chinese are about to pull the rug out from lending us any more money to finance our out-of-control deficit spending.

What is worse is that they could sell our debt short. 1/3 of the country may not be able to afford WalMart if that snowballs.

So, how much is $2.1 billion in soldiers' lives?

Well... 'Welfare' keeps indigent people from dying on my lawn. I'm fond of that one.

Posted by: Crissa

no need to worry. they can't afford the bus fare.

your pal,
blake

The calamity our leaders fear will "follow us home" is not terrorism (they know terrorism is here to stay and there's not a damn thing they can do about it) but economic collapse. For if America no longer wishes to provide the police force for the global marketplace, what does the rest of the world need America for? There are a number of good answers to that question, both pro and con; the point is that America's political leadership is too frightened to consider the question in the first place.
Posted by: dr sardonicus on August 9, 2007 at 3:19 PM
---------

Nailed it big time. China is already rumbling about calling us on our debt if we keep bugging them about currency reform. We are being knuckled under in a most humiliating way-especially after the wealthy in this country has encouraged the capital flight there and benefited from it at the expense of the entire nation (i.e. the deindustrialization of America). Interestingly, this is coming at the time that we are running out of consumption fuel to buy Chinese exports and fixing to slump into a nasty recession - or worse. What about the trillions of dollars of American investment in China? Didn't Intel just pump a ton of capital into processor fabrication over there? They could threaten nationalization couldn't they? Just how stupid can we get?