Why not make reductions beneficiaries are requesting?

Richard Fulton

Okay, now that we pretty much know who the candidates for president will be for the two main political parties, it may be time to begin thinking of how to approach the election of members of Congress.

Since Congress has done so little in the last two years, it will be interesting to see how these legislators will justify their contentious and unfruitful performances.

Challengers will pounce.

Republicans will say it was all Obama’s fault and Democrats will say it was all the fault of Republican obstructionism.

Be that as it may, the voters must find a strategy to evaluate how to deal with those seeking to return to Congress or seeking to replace the incumbents.

One thing we all can do is insist upon some answers to some basic questions.

Conservative office holders and candidates, for example, will harp on the size of the federal deficit. These, along with the liberal office holders and candidates, will try to justify more government spending.

Each picks its favorite whipping boy — Obamacare, welfare spending, excessive waste, tax breaks for the rich, the list is large.

Let me give an example of what we voters might demand in the way of specific policy action responses on a specific issue.

I’m using the age-old, easy target of the national debt.

All politicians rage against it’s size while offering additional spending to placate specific interests of voters. “Cut their programs, not these I offer.”

Let’s attack the problem of the debt by a specific example that each candidate for Congress should address.

This week, the Pentagon sent to Congress a report asking for a new bipartisan commission to investigate the closing of military bases (for the fifth time). They note that the downsizing of the military will mean the need for less infrastructure to support fewer service personnel.

By 2019, the Army will shrink from 570,000 to 450,000; the Marines, from 202,000 to 182,000; the Air Force will have 500 fewer aircraft and 50,000 fewer personnel; the Navy will have one less carrier.

Given this, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work wrote in the report that “Spending resources on excessive infrastructure does not make sense,”

You would think he would know by now that Congress does not run on “sense,”

Note that there will be 22 percent excessive military base capacity, overall, counting 33 percent for the Army and 32 percent for the Air Force. Closings will bring $2 billion in savings each year.

But Congressional committees dismissed the request out of hand.

Still, we will hear the need to cut the deficit as well as the budget.

Why not cut $2 billion then?

They will answer that closing costs will be high, but the $2 billion will be saved every year from now on.

Their real point is that they want to save their jobs by saving the bases in their districts. So they trade off votes — I’ll support your bases if you support mine.

To hell with the budget or deficit.

Missouri even pays an official lobbyist to try and protect its bases.

These same politicians will no doubt rail against welfare spending.

But what else is substantiating useless jobs on needless bases but welfare spending? We ask welfare recipients to work or no money. Bases and their employees do redundant jobs, what’s the difference?

So let’s ask the candidates for Congress why it is that they are spending billions on military bases that the military does not want (and we won’t even go into the military weaponry the Pentagon does not want that Congress insists upon).

Let’s ask, in conjunction with this question, how they can complain about the national deficit while spending money on useless bases?

Or why they cut welfare for poor and sick families to save money while doing so.

To do both is hypocrisy of the highest order.