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January 23, 2011 11:05 PM UTC

Tea Party: Cut the Military

  • 8 Comments
  • by: redstateblues

Not Colorado politics necessarily, but I noticed this bit today from the AP. Buried beneath all of the usual talking points is a big time break with Republican standard operating procedure:

Back home, tea partiers clamoring for the debt-ridden government to slash spending say nothing should be off limits. Tea party-backed lawmakers echo that argument, and they’re not exempting the military’s multibillion-dollar budget in a time of war.

That demand is creating hard choices for the newest members of Congress, especially Republicans who owe their elections and solid House majority to the influential grass-roots movement….

This is in conflict with the Republican plan that they revealed during the campaign. A decidedly old guard platform:

House Republican leaders specifically exempted defense, homeland security and veterans’ programs from spending cuts in their party’s “Pledge to America” campaign manifesto last fall. [rsb emphasis] But the House’s new majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., has said defense programs could join others on the cutting board.

By all accounts, Republicans seem willing to go along with the notion that nothing should be off the table when it comes to budget cuts. But when the time comes to actually cut the budget, how will their current rhetoric mesh with their past policies? Establishment Republicans like John McCain are wary of the potential to return to the Clinton-era policy of base closures.

Observers will be eager to see what happens with the new Republican majority in the house, but on this particular issue it appears that Tea Party Republicans may have found common ground with liberal Democrats. (Reports of blizzard conditions in the 7th circle of hell have yet to be confirmed.)

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8 thoughts on “Tea Party: Cut the Military”

  1. The House won’t pass anything the Senate could find acceptable, so the government will shut down, and meanwhile everyone will get distracted by the latest scandal (e.g., Michelle Obama ate a bran muffin without specific authorization from the House Committee on Committees of the House which has claimed supervisory powers over the White House chef).

    The use of weasel words here is the same “everything on the table” crap that’s always used to suggest equal pain-sharing for all, when the actual plan is to screw the people with no money and pass tax cuts for the rich.

    Meanwhile some people are still unemployed.

    1. Despite some chattering to the contrary, specific action hasn’t happened, and we’ll see how far this gets when the nitty gritty of budget negotiations is underway.

      2. Not everyone in the tea party seems to be as idealistically pure and united against big government as some would believe:

        Sal Russo, chief strategist of the Tea Party Express, said the defense budget should be part of the calculation and his organization expects lawmakers to “responsibly bring spending down.” He added that his group will give them “flexibility to do their job.”

        Tea party-backed Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said lawmakers “at the end of the day, will take a look at all the fat in the budget.”

        Lip service anyone?

  2. Puts the lie to the constant Democrat talking point that the Tea Party is just a wing of the GOP now, doesn’t it? As I have said all along, the Tea Party supports fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets. It is opposed to both Republicans and Democrats who violate those principles.

  4. Obama and Robert Gates started this ball rolling (last year, in fact), and this year’s proposal from the DoD cuts $78 billion (about $15.5 billion per year).  If those cuts survive even marginally intact I’d be surprised, but I’ll gladly cheer for any Tea Party Representative (or Senator) who pushes for these and other military hardware, base, and personnel cuts that are appropriate to the nation’s desired final defense stance.  (Okay – I’ll cheer for them for that one stand, anyway…)

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