Blogs > Linked! > Author > Andrew Grossman
Yes, the military is strained. Yes, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are tiring out U.S. soldiers and equipment. And yes, defense spending is dangerously low. But these facts shouldn't give our enemies hope, yet. As Peter Brookes explains, U.S. forces are more than capable enough to respond to any of the three most likely threats: Iran, China, and North Korea.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker has issued strong warnings to Congress about repeat deployments and their toll on the army's health and welfare. The Marines, ever reluctant to complain, concur. The Army/Marine ops tempo should give us pause. But that doesn't mean Uncle Sam can't handle another fight if necessary--thanks to the Navy and Air Force. Sure, it would be tough, but let me explain...
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In 2003, Congress decided to boost funding for Medicare Advantage plans to attract private health plans that could introduce competition into Medicare. Cuts in those payments would disadvantage millions of beneficiaries who find that Medicare Advantage meets their needs better than traditional coverage. Enrollment in all private Medicare health plans has now reached an all-time high of 8.3 million beneficiaries, up from 5.3 million in 200331 and the percentage of beneficiaries who have chosen Medicare Advantage has grown from 12.1 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries in 2004 to 19 percent this year. The added funds also increase the options available for seniors living in rural areas. As we have seen with Medicare Part D, competition among private plans leads to more choices and greater value for seniors. Competing Medicare Advantage plans are offering more choices of plans, more generous benefits, and lower cost-sharing for beneficiaries than Medicare fee-for-service. Seniors who especially value this option are those with modest incomes who do not have supplementary coverage.
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The Wall Street Journal takes a very tough line on Iran's "act of war" and recounts the Islamic republic's experience seizing Western hostages.
It is worth recalling, however, that Iran was at its most diplomatically pliant after the United States sank much of Tehran's navy after Iran tried to disrupt oil traffic in the Persian Gulf in the late 1980s. Regimes that resort to force the way Iran does tend to be respecters of it. It is also far from certain that Western military strikes against Revolutionary Guards would move the Iranian people to rally to their side: Iranians know only too well what their self-anointed leaders are capable of.
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George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Other times, people remember the past too well and seek to relive and recreate it. Communism is the greatest killer the world has ever known, as the Black Book of Communism documents thoroughly. But, all the same, it did confer almost absolute power on those who were "more equal" than others. This, no doubt, is Hugo Chavez's model.
President Hugo Chavez announced Sunday that his government's sweeping reforms toward socialism will include the creation of "collective property." Vowing to undermine capitalism's continued influence in Venezuela during his television and radio program "Hello President," Chavez said state-financed cooperatives would operate under a new concept in which workers would share profits. "It's property that belongs to everyone and it's going to benefit everyone," said Chavez, a close ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro whom opponents accuse of leading Venezuela toward Cuba-style communism.
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Nile Gardiner takes a very tough line on Iran's seizure of British soldiers.
Iran's seizure of 15 British Navy personnel in Iraqi coastal waters last Friday is a hostile act of war that should be condemned by the UN Security Council and by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It was in addition a clear violation of Iraq's national sovereignty that should draw a firm response from the Maliki administration. Iran must be warned by London and Washington of the political and military consequences that would result from a failure to immediately release the British prisoners.
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What's in the House's supplemental legislation besides needed funding for the troops and some political posturing? The Politico notices a few choice items.
-$5 million for tropical fish breeders and transporters for losses from a virus last year. --$25 million for spinach that growers and handlers were unable to market, up to 75 percent of their losses. --$50 million "for asbestos abatement and other improvements" to the Capitol Power Plant.... --$74 million "for the payment of storage, handling, and other associated costs for the 2007 crop of peanuts to ensure proper storage of peanuts for which a loan is made."
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Israeli forces discover Russian-made weapons supplied to Hezbollah militants, by way of Syria. Unfortunately, as the Washington Times notes, this is not an isolated thing...
Last summer, Israeli forces in Lebanon found evidence that Russian-made Kornet-E and Metis-M anti-tank systems had been provided to Hezbollah. In the final hours of the war last August, at least 24 Israeli soldiers died in a fierce battle to capture the Lebanese town of Ghandouriyeh. After the Israel Defense Forces captured the village, they found Syrian-supplied hardware near a Hezbollah outpost: eight Kornet anti-tank rockets. Written beneath a contract number on each casing, the London Telegraph reported, were the words: "Customer: Ministry of Defence of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia." Yet Russian officials dismiss such evidence as anti-Moscow propaganda.
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Now this is really troubling...and suspicious: Just as Democrats vow to put an end to earmarking, the Congressional Research Service gives up tracking earmarks in legislation. Good thing Sen. Coburn is on the case. Too bad the congressional majority will probably do everything in its power to keep CRS our of earmark analysis.
Democrats promised reform and instituted "a moratorium" on all earmarks until the system was cleaned up. Now the appropriations committees are privately accepting pork-barrel requests again. But curiously, the scorekeeper on earmarks, the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service (CRS)--a publicly funded, nonpartisan federal agency--has suddenly announced it will no longer respond to requests from members of Congress on the size, number or background of earmarks. "They claim it'll be transparent, but they're taking away the very data that lets us know what's really happening," says Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn. "I'm convinced the appropriations committees are flexing their muscles with CRS." ... Sen. Coburn plans to fight back. He says he will attach an amendment to every appropriations bill demanding CRS prepare a full report on the earmarks in it. "Let senators vote for secrecy and prove they don't want a transparent process or let them deliver what they promised," he says. "The choice will be theirs and the American people will be watching."
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CBPP slams Colorado's TABOR. The Independence Institute sets CBPP straight on its facts. (Microsoft Word link)
TABOR does not say that government can never raise taxes. TABOR does not fix government revenues, but it does protect citizens' incomes from careless appropriation by government. It does this by shifting power to the people who pay the taxes. Before TABOR, those who wanted a tax increase to fund a pet project had only had to ask the legislature to pass a tax increase. Since tax increases give legislators more money to distribute and insulates them from the difficulties of cost cutting, raising taxes tends to be more popular with legislators than with the average taxpayer. TABOR simply requires that tax increase proponents seek approval from those who pay taxes rather than those who spend them.
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The big two issues cited by the Administration are pork and the President's power as Commander in Chief to manage the war effort. Congress needs to send a real bill that doesn't hamper the ability to make progress in Iraq and that isn't loaded with pork to the President soon so that the troops can get the funding they need.
This legislation would substitute the mandates of Congress for the considered judgment of our military commanders. This bill assumes and forces the failure of the new strategy even before American commanders in the field are able to fully implement their plans. Regardless of the success our troops are achieving in the field, this bill would require their withdrawal. In addition, the bill could withhold resources needed to enable Iraqi Security Forces to take over missions currently conducted by American troops.... The war supplemental should remain focused on the needs of the troops and should not be used as a vehicle for added non-emergency spending and policy proposals, especially domestic proposals, that should be fully vetted and considered on their own merits, such as minimum wage, various tax proposals, and changes in contracting policy. This bill adds billions in unrequested spending that is largely unjustified and non-emergency.
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USA Today reports on a new Urban Institute study showing that spending on seniors--particularly through the big entitlement programs--is crowding out spending on children's services, such as education. The entitlement squeeze is being felt throughout the budget and will only assert itself more as the baby boomers retire. Without entitlement reform or massive, unprecedented tax hikes, entitlement spending will crowd out all other federal spending well within the lifetimes of today's young workers. Every year that Congress puts off reform is a missed opportunity in so many ways.
The spiraling cost of benefits for seniors is limiting the federal government's ability to invest in kids. Despite Democrats' plans to boost spending on education and children's health insurance, the projected $2.9 trillion federal budget's tilt toward older Americans will only increase, a study out today from the Urban Institute says. The report, which examined more than 100 federal programs for children, shows that their share of domestic spending and tax breaks has dropped from 20% in 1960 to 15.4% today. Barring a change in policy, it would decline to 13% in 2017. As a share of the nation's economy, spending on kids would go from 2.6% to 2.1%. By contrast, spending for adults only in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid ? the major programs that benefit seniors ? would rise from 7.6% to 9.5% of the economy.
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So North Korea gets $25m that had been frozen in a Macau bank at U.S. insistence. Maybe this brings us a step closer to halting North Korea's nuclear activities. Or maybe--perhaps more likely--it's the prelude to still more demands and stalling by Pyongyang.
The US said $25m of North Korean funds, which were frozen in a Macau bank amid money laundering allegations, would be transferred to an account in Beijing. The North has not yet officially commented, but had warned it would not proceed with a deal to shut its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon without the money.... But there is still a long way to go. Ahead of Monday's resumption, Pyongyang condemned joint US-South Korean military exercises set for this month, saying they were intended to "poison the atmosphere of the talks".
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John Tkacik argues that "China's intent is to challenge the U.S. as a military superpower." Looking at the kind of arsenal that China is putting together, there's good reason to believe that he's right.
China is assembling a blue-water navy, with a fleet of 29 modern submarines, including 13 super-quiet Russian-made Kilo class subs and 14 Chinese-made Song and Yuan class diesel electric submarines. At least 10 more of these submarines are in China's shipyards, together with five new nuclear ballistic missile and attack boats. China's surface fleet is also undergoing a similar modernization. China's power in the air and in space is also on the rise. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force has about 300 Russian-designed fourth-generation Sukhoi-27 Flankers and a number of Chinese-built Jian-11 planes and 76 Sukhoi-30 multi-role jets. With Russian and Israeli assistance, the PLA Air Force has acquired an additional 50 or so Jian-10 fighters based on U.S. F-16 technology, and reportedly plans to build 250 more. China's rocket forces are also expanding at an unprecedented pace, with production and deployment of short-range ballistic missiles targeted at Taiwan increasing from 50 per year during the 1990s to between 100 and 150 per year today.
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Brian Riedl and Baker Spring explain what's wrong with the supplemental. So much for all those pledges of fiscal responsibility and all the lip service about supporting the troops...
The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan--whom this legislation was originally designed for--have become merely a bargaining chip for a Congress that could never pass this additional $21 billion [in pork-barrel spending] on its own. Lawmakers are effectively telling President Bush that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot have their body armor unless Congress gets $16 million for additional office space in the House of Representatives.
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Awfully disturbing news. This shows the importance of proactive intelligence and communications in homeland security. Every piece of infrastructure in the U.S.--even a school or school bus--is a potential target, and it can't be the government's job to dole out money to harden everything. But that's the rationale of too many current homeland security grant programs. They funnel money to influential constituencies, like ports, or the targets of yesterday's terrorist plots. This isn't an efficient or effective way to make Americans safer Limited funds are better invested in building up general capabilities, such as intelligence, border security, and disaster response. Hardening every school bus in the nation isn't the way to prevent an attack.
The bulletin noted "recent suspicious activity" by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them, the official told The Associated Press. Foreigners under recent investigation include "some with ties to extremist groups" who have been able to "purchase buses and acquire licenses," the bulletin says.
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