In researching around about Stephen Cambone [below], I ran across Rebuilding America’s Defenses on the Project for the New American Century site [he was on the panel that produced that report]. I hadn’t seen it before. It’s from right before Bush got elected and became a blueprint for his foreign policy. This afternoon, I went back and looked at it more closely and it made me furious [as does almost everything else on that site]. First, it doesn’t take much to read between the lines to realize that the "American interests" in the Persian Gulf region are oil, oil, and oil [there’s a great parsing of that aspect of the report on the INDEX RESEARCH blog]. The second thing is the blatant emphasis on Defense spending for very fancy, expensive weaponry [the Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower was talking about below]. In the this graphic, I’ve superimposed a National Debt graph from zfacts.com, the U.S. expense/income graph from the Clinton and Bush years [whitehouse.com], and a graph of Defense Spending from Rebuilding America’s Defenses on the P.N.A.C. site.
Looking at them together, they tell an interesting story. F.D.R. spent us into massive debt during World War II. That was his only choice. Thereafter, during the Truman, Eisenhower, J.F.K., L.B.J., Nixon, Ford, and Carter presidencies, we consistently paid it off in spite of two major wars in Korea and Viet Nam. Ronald Reagan talked traditional conservative talk ["less government", "cut spending"], he cut taxes, and he "strengthened America" with massive Defense spending. What a guy!
How can you do that? Cut taxes and spend huge amounts on National Defense [in a period when there were no wars]. It’s obvious, you can’t – or at least you can’t without going way into debt. It would be speculative to say that a factor in his massive Defense spending was the pressure from Defense Contractors and their lobbyists, but it’s actually hard to imagine that isn’t true. The Neoconservatives credit Reagan’a big spending for Defense with bringing down the Soviet Union. Most of the rest of us feel like it fell because it was a bad government that couldn’t survive the information age.
George H.W. Bush kept up the Reagan formula with big spending, tax cuts, and escalating debt. Bill Clinton‘s Administration didn’t do much with taxes. He couldn’t with the Republican Congress he had for most of his terms. But he did cut spending, the Defense Budget specifically. The result is shown on the graph in the center. Income up a bit, expenses down, and the debt finally begins to fall – a balanced budget. Well, the Neoconservatives went ballistic. Again, it would be speculative to say that a factor in this reaction was the pressure from Defense Contractors and their lobbyists, but it’s actually hard to imagine that isn’t true. But whatever the reason, the Conservative Think-Tanks were literally buzzing with dire warnings of impending doom. Thus came the report, Rebuilding America’s Defenses from the Project for the New American Century.
to be continued in Neoconservatives or Neo Con-Men? The Decision:
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