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The Headline here is a bit misleading, but Kucinich has just called for a 15% decrease in the Pentagon budget.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (news, bio, voting record) called for a $60 billion effort to provide universal preschool and proposed paying for the plan with a 15 percent cut in Pentagon (news - web sites) spending."The Pentagon budget has just gone through the roof," Kucinich said at a forum on Sunday. "We need a critical analysis and a real effort to claim back money from the Pentagon."
This is good news. I have no idea if the Pentagon's budget is too much, too little, or just right - and neither do you. There is, frankly, no government program that receives less critical public attention. Kucinich, by taking the "first to say it heat" has opened the door for other Democratic candidates to make the reasonable case that Bush is spending the Pentagon's money badly. Missile defense, for example, or general waste. They won't have to be worried about being soft on defense, because they can explicitly attack Kucinich for advocating across the board spending cuts (even if he did not, that's how this is going to be spun) while using the issue - now that it is out in the light - to attack Bush's defense priorities. Heck, we might even get a more efficient Pentagon that concentrates it resources in important areas.
In America, this is how the debate gets moved.
I think Kucinich may be right about the Pentagon budget. If we can get the Pentagon and Social Security under control, we're set.
Posted by: Chad Peterson(Full Disclosure: I'm a Kucinich campaign volunteer.)
I think the only thing wrong with Kucinich's proposal is that it is only 15%. That would take us back to what, the incredibly bloated budgets of a couple of years ago? If we didn't have troops occupying and threatening countries all over the world, we wouldn't have to worry about terrorism (even Wolfowitz admitted that having troops stationed in Saudi Arabia was one of the main reasons for 9/11 on one of the Sunday shows). The only reason for having such a huge military is visions of empire (and padding the already overstuffed wallets of the military contractors). Reject the PNAC crap and the Pentagon budget could be cut 50% or more with probably an improvement in our security.
Posted by: BobKucinich knows that to keep total federal budget down while providing essential services such as healthcare and education, we need to get the money from somewhere. Why shouldn't we tap the wasteful military budget? It doesn't even get audited, and no one knows how much waste goes on. Imagine a $400 billion corporation that doesn't produce a financial statement accurately accounting for all its debts and credits.
Isn't our military strong enough anyway? Do we really need space based weapons, new nuclear weaponry, the missile defense system? These are some of the programs Kucinich wants to stop. He wants to keep pay for the military and benefits for personnel okay, but these other wasteful programs are the ones he wants to target for funding other needs.
Bush and pals are playing the fear card all the time. The reason we have been attacked, and the reason why we have enemies to fear, are due to how our government treats other countries. Usually our military policy is there to support our economic goals. Look at how often the US has gone into countries like Chile to displace an elected government with one that will promote US interests. Why did we go into Iraq- to suppress Al Quaida connections that never existed? We go in, bomb another country and kill thousands, embark on a years' long campaign to occupy that country, and we wonder why Iraqis hate the US?
Everyone should vote for the person who they feel best about, and for me I like Kucinich. I would love to have our country working together with other countries for the common good. We could do so much, and so much better, and bring the rest of the world so much farther with us, if we do so peacefully, and with real reasons that benefit them too and not just us.
I've heard most of the candidates, including Dean, but only Kucinich makes me dream about What if it really could happen.
