Day: April 7, 2009

So You Want To Cut The Budget?

To begin with eliminate redundancy!

Sounds like a pretty good idea to me…but instead of cutting entitlements why not do something amazing and logical?  What is the budget for the DEA?  I believe I saw somewhere that in was $2 billion + for 2008.

Back in 1972, famed economist Milton Friedman said:

I believe that we have no right to […] prevent a fellow man from […] taking drugs [but] I readily grant that the ethical issue is difficult and that men of goodwill may well disagree. Fortunately, we need not resolve the ethical issue to agree on policy. Prohibition is an attempted cure that makes matters worse-for both the addict and the rest of us. Hence, even if you regard present policy toward drugs as ethically justified, considerations of expediency make that policy most unwise.

Friedman also wrote:

Legalizing drugs might increase the number of addicts, but it is not clear that it would. Forbidden fruit is attractive, particularly to the young. More important, many drug addicts are deliberately made by pushers, who give likely prospects their first few doses free. It pays the pusher to do so because, once hooked, the addict is a captive customer. If drugs were legally available, any possible profit from such inhumane activity would disappear, since the addict could buy from the cheapest source.Whatever happens to the number of addicts, the individual addict would clearly be far better off if drugs were legal. Today, drugs are box incredibly expensive and highly uncertain in quality. Addicts are driven to associate with criminals to get the drugs, become criminals themselves to finance the habit, and risk constant danger of death and disease.

I realize that the very idea of legalization of drugs will send shivers up some people’s spine, but let us look at reality for a moment.  The most recent problem…Mexico and the drug cartels….if these drugs were legal there would be no fighting and killing ovcer territories and markets.   Violence there would be at a minimum.  Local farmers would be making a decent living.

There is a real duplication of missions between ATF, FBI, DEA, INS, ICE and about twenty other acronyms.  Funds are being wasted in this duplication….funds would be freed up for other programs that are seriously lacking at this time.

The truth that most Americans do not want to face is that if a person wants to fry their brains, then they will do it whether the stuff is legal or not.  After 20 or 30 years of a “War On Drugs” just what has it accomplished?  The wasting of billion upon billions of dollars and the end is NO where in sight.

Here is novel idea……eliminate the DEA…legalize all drugs…..and viola you have created a NEW source of income for the government…not only do you save the DEA funds, but you get new funds.  The government has NO problem letting people kill themselves with booze……then what is the difference?

Only an idiot or a thief would keep flushing money down a clogged toilet.

Deep Cuts Head For The DOD

Holy Moly!  Yesterday I heard something that I thought I would never hear coming from the mouth of a person in charge of the Defense Department.

Major overhaul plans laid out by the Obama administration’s Pentagon chief would slash several giant weapons programs — and thousands of civilian jobs that go with them. With recession unemployment rising, Congress may balk at many of the cuts in Gates’ proposed $534 billion budget for the coming year.

Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration, said he is gearing Pentagon buying plans to the smaller, lower-tech battlefields the military is facing now and expects in coming years. He also said he hopes lawmakers will resist temptations to save outdated system that keep defense plants humming in their home districts.

Gates says the Pentagon won’t continue the F-22 program beyond 187 planes already planned. Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed, the nation’s largest defense contractor, has said almost 95,000 jobs could be at stake.

Gates also said no to a new fleet of Marine One presidential helicopters — with a price tag of $13 billion, more than double the original budget. He said new helicopters would be needed at some point but he wants time to figure out a better solution.

A $160 billion Army system of combat vehicles, flying sensors and bomb-hunting robots would be reduced, too, as would plans to build a shield of missile interceptors to defend against attacks by rogue countries. The Navy would revamp plans to buy new destroyers.

If one listened closely one could have heard the CEOs of various defense contractors hitting the floor and the asses of congress slamming shut.

The amazing part for me is that Gates has finally axknowledged something that I have been calling for ….since my days in Vietnam….

“I’m not trying to have irregular capabilities take the place of the conventional capabilities,” Gates said. “I’m just trying to get the irregular guys to have a seat at the table.”

I have been saying the days of conventional warfare have been gone for years…….unconventional should be the focus or we are destined to be handed our heads on many levels.

And then Gates did something few DOD leaders have ever done….he said that the budget had to be cut if the people of the country were to be looked after first (a paraphrase).  A refreshing view from someone that I doubted would be on board with the Obama plan.  Apparently, I was mistaken.