January 2012 - Military Discussion

To address another of Paul’s comments about Santorum voting against the right to work. I found that under provisions of the federal Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, it can be prohibited to have agreements between labor unions and employers that make membership, payment of union dues, or fees a condition of employment, either before or after hiring, which would require the workplace to be a closed shop. Right-to-work laws make a shop open, not restricted to union members and they are enforced in twenty-two US states (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Wyoming), DC, the territory of Guam and federal employees.

The debate went on to Commander in Chief and national security. Huntsman repeated that he brought his state to #1, Massachusetts (Romney’s state) was #47, and we have a serious trust deficit in this nation, everybody knows that Congress needs term limits and we need to close the revolving door that has corrupted Washington. Huntsman said he can best understand the complex national security issues that we face going forward and the most complex is China (he was the Ambassador). Romney said Huntsman can do better than Obama as he had no experience in leadership, business, or running a city or state and has had to learn on the job and has made one mistake after the other when it relates to foreign policy with the most serious being Iran - they’ve pursued their ambitions for nuclear weapons without having crippling sanctions. Romney also said the President was silent when over a million voices took to the streets in Iran and he failed to put together a plan to shut down their nuclear efforts, we have a President who has shrunk the military, for the first time since FDR we are no longer going to have the ability to fight 2 wars at a time. It was pointed out that only Paul and Perry have served in the military; there are 25 million veterans in this country with only 3 million currently serving. Perry said having been in the military he thought it brought knowledge of what’s required of those serving on the front lines; Obama’s giving up a trillion dollars in defense is jeopardizing our freedoms; he’s allowing a reduction in the military budget so he can spend money in other places.

Although I agree with Huntsman regarding the corruption in Washington, I’ll address it later. I’ll also address the Iran situation later. Right now I’m just going to talk about the defense budget. Remember back, to August 2011 when the budget bill was signed with 10 hours and 10 minutes remaining to a meltdown. With the bill, legislators raised the debt ceiling $2.4 trillion, cut up to $1.2 trillion over a 10 year period (includes defense and health care), and created a 12 person Super Committee that was to recommend an additional $1.2 trillion in cuts in cuts by November 23 and if the Committee was not successful it would trigger cuts in the Pentagon and domestic programs. On November 21, the Super Committee that was given the power to make change quit in defeat and subsequently $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts to take effect in 2013 were directed to Medicare, Medicaid, and the Pentagon (over half the cuts are in the defense budget). The President had 2 options – stick with the agreement made at the time the budget was passed or once again shut us down with new negotiations; he chose to keep the agreement. I’m sure that he feels as I do – there is hope that the 2012 budget situation will overturn at least some of the automatic cuts. Now back to the debate. 

Gingrich was asked to address Paul’s remarks that he is a chicken hawk. Gingrich said he grew up in a military family (dad was in the army for 27 years) and he has background in non-military but associated tasks, he pointed out that the veterans in the North Country (this would be Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) have to go to Boston for aide and that’s fundamentally wrong. Paul also acknowledged that the veteran situation is bad, he’s trying to stop the undeclared wars (I thought Bush initiated the war on terrorism) but did say he’d make the comment again. Gingrich said Paul has a long history of saying things that are inaccurate and false, he (Gingrich) didn’t have to join as he was married with a child and wasn’t eligible for the draft. Paul said he too was married but with 2 children and went when he was called.