THE SUBTLE PRESIDENT
Please don't make contradiction this obvious. But then, what better can we expect from you?
"Mr Bush said his proposal would cut "wasteful or bloated" spending and also urged Congress to make his tax cuts permanent.
The defence department's budget is set to increase by 7.5% and the Department of Homeland Security's by 11%."
posted by Wavefunction at 7:25 AM
3 Comments:
I have never understood how the libertarians can complain when the government takes their money and spends it on public infrastructure and yet never utter a squeak when the same government takes my money and uses it to bomb other countries without my approval. Why is defence not included in pork barrel spending?
Quite right. First and foremost (and all the time actually) they should condemn defence spending and the Iraq war. The same Ronald Reagan who espoused Milton Friedman's libertarian principles and won his approval spent obscenely on defence. As you alluded to, at least in principle we approve government spending on, say, education. But who asked anyone about marching into Iraq?
I am quite sure my decision to post here will be a mistake. Nonetheless, I will offer a response.
We, the people of the United States, approved 'marching into Iraq' in the same manner as we approve spending on education. The duly elected Congress voted to approve both. If a resolution regarding the invasion of Iraq is not enough (though I would suggest that such a resolution is more than tacit support of the President’s plan), then consider the fact that our Congress continues to fund our endeavor in Iraq.
We live in a representative state in which nearly everyone is invited to participate. As a result, what your Congress does is by extension what you do. Please do not let philosophy and approach blind you. Just because you don’t agree with the actions of the Congress does not mean that the will of the people has been subverted. It is just that the desires of a certain subset of the population have been supplanted by the desires of another subset of the same population.
For those of us who cling to logic and evidence it is critical that we, no matter how difficult it may be at times, do not let our desires cloud our judgement.
As for the specific references to defense spending, I would humbly request that you review the preamble to the Constitution. And again remember that what we think of as providing for the common defense may not be the same as what others think constitutes providing for the common defense.
Be Well.
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