Dominant Logistics
Why Bush Won't Be Re-Elected
There is much debate, particularly now that Wesley Clark has thrown his hat into the ring, over whether or not President Bush will be re-elected next year or if he will be replaced. Unless Bush radically alters his current positions on a variety of issues, it is virtually inevitable that he won't be re-elected, no matter what the polls are saying today. While many analysts regard the current administration as being strong on defense, and thus holding that advantage over the Democratic contenders, the reality is that the current administration's defense policies will ultimately lead to its demise.
Too Much Wasted Money
The biggest mistake the administration has made is their policy of massive defense spending increases that are not directed towards useful military purposes. The bottom line is that by election time, most Iraqi children will be attending better schools than many American children. This doesn't mean that we should be spending more on education (this is a state and local function, not a federal one) but is moreso a reflection of the declining infrastructure of the United States. Another example of this is the recent blackouts in the Eastern sections of the United States. The critical infrastructures of America are in shambles and virtually nothing is being done about it.
Where is the need for continuing to pour massive sums of money into ratholes like the RAH-66 Commanche and V-22 Osprey programs? With the growth and success of unmanned aerial and combat vehicles, how can we possibly justify the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program? These three programs alone account for $7.1 billion dollars in the 2004 military procurement budget - and that's just procurement costs. Another $4.1 billion worth of procurement funds are going down the drain for future carriers and nuclear attack submarines we have no use for. Another $1.3 billion is purchasing Stryker deathtraps and medium size trucks that do nothing to improve upon our military's capabilities. And then there's my personal favorite, $780 million for Trident D-5 submarine launched ballistic missiles - didn't Bush establish a policy to massively cut our nuclear arsenal? More than any other programs, these are draining badly needed federal dollars and causing pressures to increase the defense budget in lieu of investing in the nation's critical infrastructure. And what is truely sad is that if the administration were to cut these useless programs, it could put half of the savings back into cheaper programs, allowing for more purchases of cheaper systems and thus more manufacturing jobs, and invest the savings in the nation's infrastructure.
For all the talk of transforming the force, why hasn't there been a single mention or suggestion of pushing up the next round of BRAC discussions? Isn't now, while we are engaged in war abroad, the ideal time to trim some of the fat from our military infrastructure? Send some of our stockpiles abroad and now we can close down some of our excess warehouses and eliminate some of our wasteful stocks. It is also an ideal situation for realigning our overseas presence and even units here at home. Redeploy our forces in Europe for the next round of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and instead of sending them back to Europe, they can come back home where they belong when they are finished. Its a lot easier to close out an empty military base than one that is full of troops and gear - now is the time to take the steps to realign and save many more billions per year that, once again, can be evenly divided between reinvestment in the military and reinvestment in the nation's infrastructure.
Missing the Nuclear Boat
Frankly, it's hard to imagine a time in history more ripe for investments in nuclear energy. It's the best source of power for the environment and there are clear advantages in other energy aspects as well. We're supposedly slashing our nuclear arsenal while at the same time, the Russians have developed reactor designs to burn the leftover fissile material to produce energy but lack the funds to fully develop the program. We also are having massive security problems at many of our existing nuclear labs. At the same time, oil and gas prices have been skyrocketing for a variety of reasons. Could the answer be more clear?
Instead of wasting defense dollars pursuing marginally useful "mini-nukes" and other ridiculous nuclear designs, why not convert Los Alamos and the other labs with security problems over to non-military nuclear missions? The security problems become a non-issue if the labs are converted to a joint effort with the Russians to fully exploit designs to burn up older nuclear warheads to produce energy. The military also has numerous excess bases that could be made available for the construction of new nuclear power plants. We could also drop the insane policy of barring the reprocessing of nuclear fuel, making nuclear power far more cost effective than it currently is.
But instead of taking these common sense steps, and creating thousands if not millions of jobs through construction, manufacturing, and operations of these facilities, the Bush administration has instead chosen to maintain the status quo with our nuclear arsenal while pushing to further exploit our oil resources. I'm not against increasing oil production and exploring ANWR, but clearly a case can be made that the nuclear industry is in a much better position to benefit from a little political backing from the administration. Reducing our nuclear arsenals, stockpiles, and infrastructure could save billions of dollars every year - next year's budget has over $19 billion just for the defense portion of the Department of Energy funding for maintaining the nuclear stockpile; this doesn't include the costs of missiles, submarines, and other costs directly associated with the nuclear force. Once again, there's no reason we couldn't take these simple steps and split the savings between reinvestment in defense and reinvestment in infrastructure.
Nation-Building Overseas
The current administration recently went before Congress requesting about $87 billion to rebuild the nation of Iraq. Billions more are pouring into other "nation-building" programs including Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Billions more are spent every year by the United States to defend our allies like Japan against non-existent threats, as well as to maintain obsolete organizations like NATO. Don't get me wrong, I'm a decent Christian, I fully believe in helping one's neighbors but not at the expense of our own children.
A very eye-opening report is available online that outlines the major problems in our nation's infrastructure and it is striking. To resolve the existing deficiencies in our nation's roads and bridges alone will require us to nearly double our current spending on these items. To maintain existing mass transit systems will require double the funding we currently spend while needed improvements will require spending increases of over 300%. An estimated 75% of all schools in America are inadequate for meeting existing educational needs and the price to fix the problem is estimated at over $127 billion. Water purification systems are being underfunded by an estimated $11 billion annually while waste water treatment facilities are shorted about $12 billion per year. Nearly 2600 dams are considered to be unsafe while 21 dams have failed in the U.S. in the last two years alone. The GAO has estimated there to be between 400,000 and 600,000 hazardous contaminated areas in the US requiring clean-up while the Superfund program is actually cleaning up an average of only 40 sites per year with over 4200 sites remaining on its existing list of areas requiring clean-up. Over recent years, the load on our nations waterways has increased over 40% while funding to maintain these waterways has decreased 70%. In the electrical sector, our annual shortfall of electrical production is averaging 30% while an estimated $50 billion in improvements is needed for the power grid. All told, the current national infrastructure of the United States is in need of an estimated $1.6 trillion in improvements.
And yet here we sit watching the administration pouring larger and larger quantities of money into defense when anyone who takes the time to look can see an easy $40-50 billion per year that could be trimmed from the defense budget without having ANY negative impact on our military capabilities. Bush wants about $20 billion more to spend on defense per year - trim even a small portion of the waste from the existing defense budget and that money will be available with an additional $20-30 billion available to reinvest in the nation's infrastructure.
Bush Doesn't Deserve Re-Election
Hey, I'll admit it - I voted for Bush, but I won't do it again. He's still better than Gore ever would've been under the present circumstances and there are things he's done right. But managing the nation's checkbook hasn't been one of them and it has nothing to do with the rough economic times we've been having. The bottom line is that federal spending has got to be trimmed and reorganized or this nation is in deep trouble. I'm a big fan of tax cuts and believe they should probably be cut more if anything. But at the same time, the federal government is wasting hundreds of billions of dollars every year, dollars that it doesn't have to be spending in the first place. There would be no federal deficit if we quit wasting money on projects and budget items that are useless and wasteful.
Reinvesting in existing defense programs like the F-16, the H-60, and the LHD will create more industrial jobs while at the same time lowering the costs of defense and improving our current defense capabilities. Reducing our unneeded nuclear infrastructure will cut costs and make investment in civilian nuclear programs a viable option strengthening the peace with Russia while making more money available for useful defense programs. But for whatever reason, the current administration isn't interested in making more jobs and reducing federal spending. It's time we look for an adminstration that is. When Iraqi children are attending better schools than our own, paid for with our defense dollars, something is just plain wrong with this picture.